Dive Brief:
- A Massachusetts family objected last week to the proposed bankruptcy sale of Anna Maria College’s real estate, which the Catholic institution is using to pay off its debts after shuttering earlier this year.
- David and Elaina Roy and their son allege that Anna Maria leaders promised to gift them a 2.4-acre parcel bordering their own property. The college included the plot in its marketing of the rest of its roughly 260 acres of real estate for sale and disputes the family’s claim.
- The Roys asked the judge overseeing Anna Maria’s bankruptcy to recognize their claim and postpone any sale of the contested parcel until they resolve the legal disagreement over ownership. Barring that, they requested the judge hold any proceeds from the sale tied to the property in escrow until the dispute is settled.
Dive Insight:
The Roys’ objection adds a wrinkle to the sale of Anna Maria’s real estate portfolio, which the college has said in court documents is worth more than the $17.7 million in secured debt it needs to pay off in bankruptcy. Their objection could potentially delay or restructure the property sale.
Anna Maria’s attorneys and president have acknowledged throughout the bankruptcy process that the Roys asserted a claim over the property. Indeed, the Roys sued the college in 2025 in state court over the property, a case that is still playing out as the conflict spills into bankruptcy court.
A judge in the state case blocked Anna Maria from selling the property until the case was resolved. However, Anna Maria President Sean Ryan said in a bankruptcy court filing that the order wasn’t recorded with the local deeds office by the time Anna Maria filed for bankruptcy.
Anna Maria included the parcel in its motion to sell its property, stating in the document that it “disputes the validity of the alleged right of first refusal asserted by the Roys.”
In a court filing last week, the Roys said that in 1997 they were originally promised the right of first refusal to buy the undeveloped 2.4-acre plot by the Sisters of Saint Ann, the religious order that founded Anna Maria 80 years ago. According to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, David Roy’s parents owned Anna Maria’s food service for some 30 years.
According to the Roys, they had plans to eventually build a retirement home on the property and pass on their own home on the adjacent property to their children. In the meantime, the family said they have passed on opportunities to sell their home and buy other properties in anticipation of one acquiring the Anna Maria property.
However, the Roy family alleges the Sisters gifted the property to the college some 25 years after they were promised the first right of refusal. According to their court filing, the Roys met with Anna Maria executives, who planned to turn over the property to the family for no money “to right a wrong.”
The college prepared the parcel for transfer with the local planning board, which approved the plan to carve out the parcel, according to emails and meeting minutes shared in court documents. But the college’s chief information officer at the time, Michael Miers, told the family by email in fall 2023 that Anna Maria’s legal team said gifting the property to the Roys was no longer possible.
Anna Maria closed this spring amid years of enrollment declines. In June, Ryan pointed to an enrollment drop of 18% to 1,520 students between the fiscal years 2021 and 2025. Meanwhile, net tuition and fee revenue fell from $19.2 million to $14.3 million over the same period.
Just weeks after the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education flagged Anna Maria as a closure risk, the board decided that the most responsible move was to “implement an orderly teach-out of enrolled students [and] cease academic operations” once its spring semester wrapped up, Ryan said. It filed for bankruptcy in June.
Next month, the college plans to transfer its nursing program to nearby Assumption University for $1.1 million, an arrangement hashed out in bankruptcy.
