Sale of nursing home delayed until July

The Donley County Hospital District still owns the Medical Center Nursing Home more than a month and a half after it was scheduled to be sold into private hands.

A called meeting of the hospital board will be held tonight (May 15) at 6 p.m. to update the board on events that have delayed the closing of the sale.

Board Chairman Alan Fletcher said Tuesday that some legal questions are one reason the sale is not yet closed.

“It’s a typical deal,” he said. “There are too many attorneys involved.”

The sale should have closed April 1 with Community Care Management Services of Denton under the name of Clarendon Realty, LTD, buying MCNH for $1.25 million. The hospital district, which only wanted $1.06 million for the property, was then going to refund $190,000 to the buyer for use as operating money.

But construction of an eight-bed expansion to the facility and state certification of those beds took longer than expected, Fletcher said; and the successful completion of both tasks were a requirement of the contract.

In the meantime, Fletcher said the $190,000 refund to the buyer was mentioned in passing to a third party attorney, who thought that action might not be legal.

Fletcher said attorneys for the district and attorneys for the district’s bond company had okayed the refund, but he did not feel comfortable going ahead if there was even the possibility of it being legally questionable.

“I’m not going to jail over this deal,” Fletcher said.

Now the two parties are in agreement to change the contract to reflect a purchase price of $1.06 million and forget the refund altogether.

Fletcher said that tonight’s meeting is informational because he wants everything to be public and that the board will consider approving the revised contract at its regular meeting next Tuesday.

A new closing date for the sale will probably be July 1, Fletcher said.

The board will also discuss tonight two vacancies on the board and who might be willing to serve in those positions.