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CONDO TERMINATION MADE MORE DIFFICULT?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published August 9, 2024
Developers were licking their chops after condo bills SB-4 and
HB 1021 took effect. Owners of older buildings, facing huge
special assessments after damaging inspection reports, were
willing to sell their units in order to avoid foreclosure.
Especially older hi-rise buildings where owners voted down fully
funded reserves year for year, had more or less no other choice
than trying to sell in order to recoup some money.
And
developers were waiting to grab these units, often even offering
favorable prices.
But
Florida’s Third
District Court of Appeal threw a monkey wrench into the buyouts
of older buildings by developers, who more or less bought the
property, willing to tear down the actual building to replace it
with higher buildings with more “fancy” units.
In the case of “Angelica
Avila, et al. vs. Biscayne 21 Condominium, Inc.” the
3rd DCA ruled that the termination vote wasn’t done
according to the governing documents of the association.
“The change to the termination vote threshold materially
altered unit owners’ voting rights. By requiring a unanimous
vote for termination, the declaration originally gave every unit
owner an effective veto over any termination plan, which would
be lost if the amendments at issue here were enforced.”
The case
goes back to the lower court and will then most likely be
appealed by the developer. But it leaves the big question: Can a
very small number of owners spoil the sale for a wide majority
of neighbors?
And don’t
forget: The developer owns a wide majority of units, meaning he
runs the association board. And the board can make life very
miserable for the few owners blocking the termination.
It will
be interesting to see what the courts will do – and what steps
the developer will take to make sure the termination succeeds!
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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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