Condo Buyers Suing Donald Trump Over Abandoned Luxury Resort In Mexico

March 16, 2009 5:24 a.m. EST

Los Angeles, CA (AHN) - Real estate developer Donald Trump is facing a lawsuit from 69 buyers of condominium units in a Mexican luxury resort carrying the businessman's name but has never been constructed.

In the suit filed before a state court in Los Angeles, the buyers claimed Trump misled them into buying units at the Trump Ocean Resort Baja in Tijuana causing them to lose $18 million worth of cash deposits.

Trump had only licensed the resort's developer to use his name but his Los Angeles-based Irongate Development produced marketing materials touting Trump as involved and had equity stake in the project.

The plaintiffs also claimed that Irongate did not inform buyers that it failed to obtain financing for the project but used their deposits.

Trump denied any wrongdoing. "This was known by everybody that we merely licensed the name," Trump said Friday, according to Bloomberg.com. "I'm not the developer. I have never been to the site."