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 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
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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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