'This is our present and our future' | Hearings continue in lawsuit over Southgate condo landslide damage

SOUTHGATE, Ky. — Residents of a condominium complex are still searching for relief after their homes were damaged in a landslide over the summer.

In a Campbell County courtroom, residents and experts testified for more than six hours on everything from the building’s safety to its possible history of soil slippage.

In late July, residents received notice from their HOA that the building was on an active landslide and that they were strongly recommended to evacuate.

A few days later, some of those residents filed a class action lawsuit. The lawsuit asks for relocation expenses, financial assistance, mortgage and homeowner’s association fees, and “any other temporary relief.” It also asks for damages for the loss of the fair market value of the real estate, among other fees.

Nicholas Summe, the attorney representing the condo owners, said his clients’ lives have been drastically disrupted by the hillside slippage.

“Their whole lives have been uprooted. Not that ‘I’m planning to move,’ but ‘Hey, you need to get out right now for your safety,” he said.

Summe alleges the slippage of the soil behind building 30 was preventable: “There was protections and safeguards put in place to prevent it, and they were not followed.”

An SD1 spokesperson in a statement said that it is their policy not to discuss ongoing litigation.

Watch what residents had to say after court on Friday:

At the end of Friday’s proceedings, attorneys on both sides said it could take up to a year or longer to fully sort out the situation.

For some residents, like Sherri Holt, that timeline feels untenable. She’s living with family while continuing to pay her mortgage, utilities and HOA fees.

“It’s just still aggravating that, you know, we have to go through this and have to pay for two places,” Holt said.

Fellow resident Kelley Grainger is still living in the building, at her own risk. She said she’s one of the few that remain, and she’s facing utility and security issues.

Grainger was among a dozen residents who spent hours in the courtroom because “this is our present and our future,” she said.

She said she hopes things will move faster now that experts have begun their testimony, but she said it was difficult to hear that the defendants don’t feel any accountability.

“They don’t understand what the residents have been going through — emotionally, financially and also structurally with the building, so that’s been a little bit difficult,” Kelley said.

The next hearing date is set for Feb. 25.

Watch our previous coverage below: