Enrique Arevalo bought what he was told would be a luxury two-bedroom apartment in one of Miami’s newest condominiums, and jumped at the chance to move into Everglades on the Bay North and South.

Now the Aventura project’s developer, Cabi Downtown, is in Chapter 11. Arevalo and about 70 other disgruntled buyers at the same twin-tower project want their deposits back.
According to a lawsuit filed last week in the bankruptcy case, Arevalo slapped down a deposit of $148,000 to buy the $495,000 condo in 2004.
The suit is one of hundreds being filed in South Florida as condo buyers try to salvage deposits out of the wreckage of the boom and bust condo market. Along the way, their attorneys are creatively using various state and federal consumer protection laws to recoup deposits that will be tested through the court system.
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