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LET’S CAUSE SOME
CHAOS
By
Eric Glazer, Esq.
Published February 22, 2016
It’s no secret that I always thought it was unfair that
condominium owners had the protection of the DBPR in their
corner while owners in an HOA did not. For a lousy $4.00 per
unit per year, the DBPR provides condominium owners access to
arbitrators, free forms, investigators, a question and answer
hot line, educational materials and more. Have a complaint
against your condo? File a complaint and without charge, it will
be investigated by the DBPR. Have that same complaint in an HOA?
Hire an attorney and spend thousands.
This year, our bill which would have provided
this help to HOA owners was filed in both The Florida Senate and
The Florida House. Its first stop was at the Regulated
Industries Committee where the following Senators voted against
the bill and killed it:
Rob Bradley
Joseph Abruzzo
Aaron Bean
Anitere Flores
Joe Negron
Kelli Stargel
If you live in an HOA I think you want to
remember these names in November.
Here is what I cannot figure out though. If these Senators
believe that DBPR oversight is so terrible for HOAs, why is it
still OK for condominiums? Sure there are some subtle
differences, but for all intents and purposes, condominiums are
generally built tall and HOAs are generally built wide. It still
boils down to many families sharing facilities, roads,
driveways, and chipping in for the common expenses. There’s
still a Board of Directors elected by the people that live
there. They are generally one in the same. If the DBPR is so
terrible in the eyes of The Florida Legislature when it comes to
HOAs, why not is the same logic applicable to condominiums? I
think the simple answer is the fact that each year, condominium
owners grossly overpay the DBPR and instead of the excess funds
going back to the condominiums, it gets swept into the general
fund to the tune of millions of dollars each year. It’s like a
little piggy bank on the side for
the Florida Legislature to play with.
I’m sure almost all of you know what the
Equal Protection Clause of The United States Constitution is. It
reads that no state shall deny to any person within its
jurisdiction "the equal protection of the laws".
It seems to me that condo owners and HOA
owners are treated unequally under the law, even though they
generally live in the same type of communities. Condo owners are
required to pay $4.00 per unit per year while HOA owners don’t
have to pay a thing. Worse yet, the funds paid by the condo
owners don’t even go back to the people who paid it. It is
certainly an extra tax paid by condo unit owners that HOA owners
don’t have to pay.
Since everyone is not being treated equally,
and the Florida Legislature doesn’t want to allow the DBPR to
assist HOAs, but still wants the ability to pillage the funds
paid by condo owners, I think it’s time to file a lawsuit
challenging the constitutionality of it all. We need some condo
associations to come forward and say enough is enough. Either
all owners in community associations pay, or none of us pay. And
when we pay, it needs to get spent on us and not swept up into
the general fund for other pet projects of The Florida
Legislature.
If The Florida Legislature thinks the DBPR is
a bad thing and that it’s a good idea to clog up the courts with
lawsuits, rather than have arbitrators hear these condominium
and HOA disputes, let’s give them what they want. Let’s do away
with the DBPR completely for associations just like HOAs
So, if any Florida condominium association
Boards are tired of footing the bill, give me a call and maybe
we can shake things up a bit by filing a lawsuit against the
state. And if we win, and lots of good people at the DBPR are
out of work and lots of condo owners suddenly need to hire
expensive lawyers to fight their associations, so be it. In the
eyes of The Florida Legislature there’s nothing wrong with any
of that, as long as HOA owners don’t have to pay $4.00 per year
all is good. We’ll see about that.
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About
HOA & Condo Blog
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Eric Glazer graduated from
the University of Miami School of Law in 1992 after
receiving a B.A. from NYU. He has practiced community
association law for more than 2
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decades and is the owner of Glazer
and Associates, P.A. a seven attorney law firm with offices in
Fort Lauderdale and Orlando and satellite offices in Naples,
Fort Myers and Tampa.
Since 2009, Eric has been the host
of Condo Craze and HOAs, a weekly one hour radio show that airs
at noon each Sunday on 850 WFTL.
See:
www.condocrazeandhoas.com.
He is the first attorney in the
State of Florida that designed a course that certifies
condominium residents as eligible to serve on a condominium
Board of Directors and has now certified more than 10,000
Floridians all across the state. He is certified as a Circuit
Court Mediator by The Florida Supreme Court and has mediated
dozens of disputes between associations and unit owners. Eric
also devotes significant time to advancing legislation in the
best interest of Florida community association members.
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