Year: 2014

It’s been a pleasure meeting so many of you this past week, teaching the Condo Craze Board Certification Course at the PM-EXPO event in West Palm Beach and then at the Holiday Inn at Universal Studios.  Even though we were unsuccessful this legislative session in accomplishing further H.O.A. reform, it was incredibly heart warming to…

There are so many ways a developer can build a community: The developer can build separate buildings but record only one declaration of condominium that all units are governed by.  In that case, there would be only one condominium and only one condominium association. The developer can build multiple buildings, make each one a separate…

Republicans always knock the Democrats for never actually solving a problem, but choosing instead to form a committee to investigate solutions that may one day hypothetically come up with the answer to the problem and which may ultimately and possibly be utilized in the future to solve the problem, after running it through a few…

You may remember that about two years ago, a Miami Dade Grand Jury was convened to investigate condominiums and the DBPR.  The findings were scary.  The Grand Jury found condo crime was rampant and that The Department of Business and Professional Regulation was not part of the solution, but rather part of the problem. Now,…

As many of you already know, each owner of a condominium unit pays $4.00 per year to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Division of Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes.  The money is supposed to be spent helping to regulate and provide services to condominium unit owners throughout our state. Each year, because the…

You may recall that two years ago, The House and the Senate passed legislation that would have allowed condominiums in excess of 75 in height to opt out of a mandatory engineered life safety system. Legislation already existed that allowed these condominiums to opt out of sprinkler requirements.  Condos opted out of the sprinkler requirements,…

Believe it or not……I received more than one e-mail this year from people complaining that their annual meetings are being conducted in a language other than English and some people are fighting mad about it.  I’ll risk being politically incorrect and say that I think it’s absurd that that a unit owner can attend the…

It’s that time of year again when The Florida Legislature convenes in order to debate and pass new laws.  There’s always at least a few bills that have something to do with our Florida community associations.  Over the next few weeks, we will discuss the bills that have been filed, track their progress and give…

In Woodside Village Condominium Association, Inc. v. Jahren  806 So.2d 452 (Fla. 2002)  The Florida Supreme Court heard the story of a unit owner who owned 4 units in a condominium and who basically lost the ability to rent those units because the unit owners voted to amend their declaration of condominium to only allow a…

A few weeks ago, we blogged about how to run a successful annual meeting. I not so jokingly said the best way to make the meeting run smoothly was to order food. Lots of it. I also made it clear not to serve liquor. I wasn’t joking about that either. As many of us know,…