Bank plans to auction posh property owned by West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice to repay loans

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Virginia bank seeking to recover more than $300 million in long-term unpaid business loans to the family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice plans to auction off land at a sports club at the governor’s posh resort.

Carter bank & Trust of Martinsville, Virginia, posted a legal notice in the Charleston Gazette-Mail on Tuesday. The message stated that an auction of the Greenbrier Sporting Club lots is scheduled for March 5 at the Greenbrier County Courthouse in Lewisburg.

The Greenbrier Sporting Club is a private equity club and residential community that opened in 2000. Justice bought The Greenbrier, which has hosted U.S. presidents and royalty, out of bankruptcy in 2009. The PGA Tour held a tournament at the resort from 2010 to 2019.

In a 2021 lawsuit that Justice and his companies filed against Carter Bank, the governor revealed that he is personally on the hook for $368 million in remaining loan debt owed to that bank. He also said a close business relationship fell apart dramatically after the death of the bank’s founder, Worth Carter, in 2017. The 2021 lawsuit was later dismissed, but the Justice companies filed another lawsuit against the bank last November.

Justice, which owns dozens of companies, has also been the subject of numerous lawsuits alleging that he has been late in paying millions of dollars in fines, for example for unsafe working conditions in his coal mines.

Messages left with the governor’s office and the Justice Department were not immediately returned Tuesday afternoon.

Justice, a Republican, is wrapping up his second term as governor this year and is running for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by Democrat Joe Manchin. Manchin has said he will not seek re-election.

Last year, dozens of Justice properties in three provinces were put up for auction as payment for delinquent property taxes.