RIGHT TO RENT?

By Jan Bergemann

Published September 30, 2022

 

In the case of Woodside v. Jahren I honestly believe that the Supreme Court got it all wrong. And Mr. Jahren wasn't the only one that got hit by this Supreme Court ruling. Many retirees had bought second and third condos as an investment to finance their retirement. Other folks from out of state had bought condos they wanted to live in once retired, but planned on renting out these condos in order to finance the mortgage until it was time to retire.

 

All these good plans were killed because of this Supreme Court ruling and the eagerness of many condo owners to prohibit renting in their communities.

 

But this eagerness to prevent renters from living in their community could backfire as a sad case from a community in Central Florida showed. A condo president campaigned heavily to amend the governing docs to prohibit renting. Well, he succeeded.

 

Two years later his wife died suddenly and since he couldn't live by himself he had to move into an assisted living facility. But that is pretty expensive. This was in 2007, a year when the condo market had crashed. He asked the board for an exemption, to rent out his unit until the market recovered. The board voted "NO" and he had to sell his nice unit far below actual value.

 

In this case the Florida Legislature got it right: They enacted a provision that grandfathered in rental rights in order to prevent hardships like Mr. Jahren suffered when he suddenly couldn't rent out the units he had purchased just for that purpose.

 

This is just another example that shows that CONDO LIVING is very tricky.


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Jan Bergemann

Jan Bergemann is president of Cyber Citizens For Justice, Florida 's largest state-wide property owners' advocacy group. CCFJ works on legislation to help owners living in community  

associations. He moved to Florida in 1995 - hoping to retire. He moved into a HOA, where the developer cheated the homeowners and used the association dues for his own purposes. End of retirement!

 

CCFJ was born in the year 2000, when some owners met in Tallahassee - finding out that power is only in numbers. Bergemann was a member of Governor Jeb Bush's HOA Task force in 2003/2004.

 

The organization has two websites to inform interested Florida homeowners and condo owners:

News Website: http://www.ccfj.net/.

Educational Website: http://www.ccfjfoundation.net/.

   
We think that only owners can really represent owners, since all service providers surely have a different interest! We are trying to create owner-friendly laws, but the best laws are useless without enforcement. And enforcement is totally lacking in Florida !


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