Nearly Half the 5-Year Yield's Autumn Drop Is Gone

The McDaniel as its architect drew it: the townhomes planned for East McBee Avenue.

Rendering by MHK Architecture

GREENVILLE, S.C., Nov. 3. The city of Greenville is suing the developers of The McDaniel, the stalled luxury townhomes on East McBee Avenue, and is the first public body to join the legal fights over the project, the Post and Courier reported. The suit, filed Nov. 3 against Keene Development Group and two McBee Townhomes companies, says they did not follow approved engineering plans or stormwater requirements on the 2-acre site.

Stormwater from the site in 2024 eroded city land on the abandoned railbed behind the Greenville Zoo, the suit says, leaving it "unstable and in danger of eroding away." The city plans to carry the Swamp Rabbit Trail along that railbed to Cleveland Park. It seeks the cost of repairs and punitive damages, WYFF reported.

The project sold half of its 20 first-phase homes within six weeks of its announcement in 2023. Work on the second phase stopped in 2024, and the project has since drawn more than a dozen legal actions, among them breach of contract claims, foreclosure filings and mechanic's liens, most from contractors who say they were not paid, the Post and Courier reported. The general contractor, Ineo Builders, ended its role in March 2025, the paper reported. Most buyers have had their down payments refunded, WYFF reported.

Kyle Keene, the developer, has sued too, claiming a general contractor sabotaged the project and secretly shopped it to other investors, the Post and Courier reported. He told WYFF his companies are raising new money and restructuring their debt, and plan to begin repairs in February and resume building in the spring.

MAULDIN, S.C., Oct. 23. Coupe's Corner has opened a second lounge, at 787 E. Butler Road in Mauldin, the Post and Courier reported. It opened Oct. 23 and serves food, cocktails and live music Wednesday through Sunday from 6 p.m. Marius Soglo and his business partner, Ajay Gladney, opened the first Coupe's Corner, one of Greenville's prominent Black-owned bars, on Augusta Street in the West End in December 2023.

NEW YORK, Nov. 11. The Dow rose about half a per cent on Wednesday as technology, oil and gas, and industrial shares led the market higher, Investing.com reported.

An unpaid contractor or supplier can put a lien on the building itself, which clouds its title until the debt is paid, the lien is bonded off or it lapses; in South Carolina the claimant has 90 days to file and six months to sue, and the lien ranks behind any mortgage recorded before the lien was filed.

The right belongs to anyone owed for labor or materials that went into the building with the owner's consent, from the general contractor down to the concrete subcontractor and the lumber yard, under Title 29 of the state code. The lien attaches to the building and to the owner's interest in the land, so it travels with the property, and a buyer or lender who finds one in the records will want it settled before closing. The code caps what a sub-subcontractor or supplier can collect at what was owed down the chain, unless that claimant gave the owner the notice the statute provides for.

The deadlines are short and strict. A claimant must serve and file a statement of the debt within 90 days after last working on or supplying the job, and must sue to enforce it, with notice of the suit filed, within six months. Miss either deadline and the lien is dissolved.

The date that decides who stands first is the day the lien statement is filed. Apart from one exception the code sets out, a mechanic's lien is not enforceable against a mortgage recorded before that statement was filed, so a bank whose construction loan was recorded at the start of the job generally stands ahead of any contractor who files later. The trades cannot jump ahead of that bank, but they can hold up a sale or a refinancing, because the title has to be cleared before either one closes.

An owner who disputes the bill doesn't have to pay it to free the building. The code lets the owner, or anyone with an interest in the property, post security worth one and a third times the amount claimed, in cash, securities or a surety bond, and the lien is discharged; the fight then moves to the money posted. That is how a building can be sold or financed while the dispute goes on, at the cost of tying up a third more than the claim. Whoever wins a lien suit can also recover a reasonable attorney's fee, though fee and costs together can't exceed the lien.

The owner who gets hurt is the one who paid the general contractor and later learns the subcontractors were never paid, because the code gives those subcontractors and suppliers a lien of their own on the building. Unfinished projects are where the claims pile up, as contractors' liens on the stalled townhomes on East McBee Avenue in Greenville show. For a buyer or a lender, the 90-day window carries a quieter risk: on a building where work ended recently, a contractor still inside that window may not have filed yet, so a clean records search cannot rule the claim out.

"Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it. Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee." Proverbs 3:27-28.

The chapter around these verses is about the wisdom that lets a man lie down without fear, and here it comes down to the plainest kind of honesty. What is owed is not mine to hold. If the money is in hand, the neighbour at the door is not to be told to come back tomorrow.

I have known good men who never took a dime that was not theirs and still made others wait for what was owed them, because the money did a little better sitting where it was, or because tomorrow felt easier than today. The proverb does not call that theft. It simply will not let a neighbour be put off when the means are already there.

So the bill on my desk that I can pay, I will pay this morning. The man who did the work has bills of his own, and his own sleep to think of.

Dear Editor: I own a small building of four apartments, bought with a bank loan, and this autumn I asked the bank to renew it. The bank sent an appraiser, who arrived at ten o'clock, photographed the front of the building from his car, and left at ten past. His report describes the kitchens in some detail. I should be glad to know which kitchens he means, since mine have not been touched since I bought the place. I am to pay his fee all the same. [Ask the bank for his photographs of the kitchens. A man may describe a room from the street, but he ought not to charge for it as if he had been inside. ED.]

A Small Landlord, Mills Avenue

Thursday will be sunny, with a high near 67 and a west wind gusting to 24 miles an hour, and Thursday night mostly clear, with a low around 39, the National Weather Service says. Those raking leaves are advised to begin at the downwind end.