ELLENVILLE – Despite reports in Monday's Daily Freeman declaring the demise of the much talked-about contract to purchase the Nevele Grande Resort, Marvin Neuman, the president of Auction America Realty, wants to set the record straight.

"We don't have a dead deal," said Neuman on Tuesday. "But, we do have an issue with all of the funds coming in to the country timely. As a result, we had decided a couple of weeks ago that we were going to still look to procure a deal with one of my other buyers, and since there have been no names disclosed, we will just go through our deal, which is the way I was working."

The Freeman article quotes Steven Kutner, director of marketing for Auction America, the company charged with selling the resort for owner Joel Hoffman. Kutner said that the deal was canceled when complications related to funding coming from overseas delayed the closing of the sale. Kutner cited the Patriot Act, and Neuman confirmed that the federal law, which scrutinizes monetary transactions from outside of the United States, has been problematic.

Neuman explained that while the buyer had defaulted on the contract of sale because he could not bring the necessary funds from overseas before the contract's default date, he was hesitant to declare the deal as "dead."

"The main buyer has defaulted on the terms of his contract," said Neuman. "So there is no deal right now — unless he comes up with his deal, and can do something quicker than the next person that can now come in line, which is why I say his deal isn't dead. Because, what happens if next week I get a phone call and he's still interested in pursuing this in the way he claims he is?"

In order to secure a closing as soon as possible, Neuman said that the auction is back on.

"Because the winterizing and issues that can occur will not be helpful to the property…we want to close quickly. So I will open up not as a regular public auction where I will have the auctioneer, but I will probably have a dealing day for all of my prospective buyers to come and present me with sealed-bid offers." Neuman was unsure of an auction date as of press time.