Norman keeping mum on wife's waterfront house to protect her privacy

When County Commissioner Jim Norman's wife, Mearline, bought a lakefront house in Arkansas four years ago, she also purchased two boats from the same property owner.

Mearline Norman later put her husband's name on the registration for the boats but left his name off the house, which cost $435,000 for in March 2006.

Had the 2,804-square-foot house been in his name also, Norman would have been required under Florida law to disclose the property.

Instead, Norman doesn't have to explain whose cash paid for the house because it is not jointly owned. And he maintains that obtaining two boats in the same deal as the house -- a 28-foot pontoon boat and a 16-foot ski boat -- does not obligate him to elaborate.

"These were not the same transaction because the house is real estate and the boats are tangible property," Norman said in an e-mail response to questions. "Additionally ... my wife, Mearline, added my name to the boats later for liability and insurance purposes."

In a previous e-mail response, Norman said he didn't know his wife had added his name to the registration.

Even if the boats and the house had been purchased in the same transaction, Norman would still not have to disclose the house, said Kerrie Stillman, a spokeswoman for the Florida Commission on Ethics.

"If someone has an interest in a particular piece of piece of property, it would have to be reported," Stillman said. "But something owned only by your spouse, you do not have to report on the form."

Norman has said he did not disclose the boats because they are nearly 20 years old and he thought their value was less than the $1,000 minimum reporting limit on state disclosure forms.

The Sharp County, Ark., assessor's office said the pontoon boat is currently valued at $2,675, but that if it were reassessed, the value would likely plummet to $50 because it is more than 10 years old. Norman said he plans to have the boats reappraised and will report them on disclosure forms if their value tops $1,000.

Mearline Norman purchased the house without a mortgage, according to Sharp County public records. When asked where his wife got the money for the house, Norman says she had "investors," whom he will not name.

"Further, it would be easy for me to sit here and tell you," Norman said in the e-mail, "but the law protects the privacy of my wife and family, and I'm going to as well."

Real estate purchases with multiple investors do not typically have just one investor's name on the deed, said Greg Smersh, a real estate professor at the University of South Florida. Most multi-investor real estate purchases are now done as limited liability corporations or partnerships that allow all the partners to gain if the property is sold, he said.

"If you and I were to buy a piece of property and I said, 'Let me put it in my name,' you probably wouldn't go along with it because if it's in my name I could turn around and sell it for a million dollars and tell you I only got a quarter million," Smersh said.

It also makes more sense to put the joint holding into a limited liability corporation to protect investors' other assets from seizure in a lawsuit, real estate lawyers say.

Elizabeth Lawrence, who lives in the same Cherokee Village, Ark., neighborhood where Mearline Norman has her waterfront property, said the house is empty much of the year. Mearline does some work around the house, Lawrence said, but she doesn't mingle much with neighbors. Jim Norman is rarely there.

Dick Sackett, a broker at Ozark Gateway Realty who handles some rentals, is familiar with the Norman house and also says the house is usually unoccupied.

Norman, a commissioner since 1992, is running as a Republican for state Senate District 12. He says the revelation about his wife's vacation home was a political attack by his opponent in the Aug. 24 Republican primary, Kevin Ambler. Ambler denied knowing anything about the house until he saw a television news reports on it.