Florida condo & HOA news
Plain-English Florida condo and HOA law updates for owners, volunteer board members, managers, and everyone navigating community-association life.
Read the latest articles ↓From the front lines
Written by Eric M. Glazer · Florida attorney
As promised a few weeks back, we need to discuss some very interesting pitfalls associations sometimes fall into in the area of collections. In light of the fact that mortgage delinquencies are at an all-time high, rest assured that owners will in a short while begin falling behind on condo and HOA…
Read: MORE ABOUT COLLECTIONS → Irecently explained how lucky the banks are when they foreclose on a unit or a home and take back ownership. The law protects them, and despite how much the unpaid condo or HOA assessments are, the bank is only responsible for the lesser of one year of assessments or 1% of the mortgage. Many of you are…
Read: WAIT – IT GETS WORSE → So here is what you need to know in a nutshell: Mortgage defaults are soaring. In fact, homeowners stopped paying mortgages in record numbers in April. It was the largest one month increase ever recorded. Under Florida law, that spells financial disaster for our condos and HOAs. Keep this in mind as you…
Read: FORECLOSURES AND WHY OUR CONDOS AND HOAs MAY BE IN TROUBLE → So this blog will discuss the collection process from the association’s perspective. It will tell you what the association must do if it wants to attempt to collect from an owner who is not paying their assessments. It does not tell you what to do if the bank already started foreclosure proceedings or if…
Read: THE COLLECTION PROCESS–PART 1 → Iwas admitted to The Florida Bar in 1992. In nearly 30 years, it’s amazing how technology has and continues to change both my job as an attorney and yours, as officers and directors. On Thursday, I was a mediator, mediating a dispute between owners and their association. What usually takes place in several…
Read: WOW – THINGS HAVE CERTAINLY CHANGED → Most weeks we blog about particular statutes, laws, cases or regulations. This week we’re going to blog about something that may be more important than all of those things. Our behavior. Our interaction with each other. How we treat each other. I think this blog is going for about a decade now. You can…
Read: I'M NOTICING AN UNUSUAL TREND → We all remember just how bad our communities suffered about a dozen years ago during the great recession. Our firm represented condominiums where nearly half of all units went into foreclosure. It was terrible for community associations. The paying owners were often times forced to pay double to make up…
Read: WILL IT BE THE FORECLOSURE CRISIS ALL OVER AGAIN? → Ican’t hold it in any longer. I must tell someone. I have been less than honest with the readers of this blog and the listeners to the Condo Craze and HOAs Radio Show. I’m a fake and a fraud. The truth is…………despite the fact that I urge all of you out there to get involved in your community, to run for…
Read: I MUST CONFESS → Last week we discussed how the expenses of your condominium or HOA get divided among all of the owners. The blog ended by warning you that there is one type of expense that is not subject to the standard rules, and that’s when it comes to your association’s bulk cable and internet bill. In both a condo and…
Read: BE CAREFUL ABOU THE CABLE BILL → So why is it that in some condos and HOAs the bigger the unit or the bigger the home does not necessarily mean the bigger the monthly assessment payment? For condominiums built before 1992, the developer was able to create a set of documents where anything goes when it comes to what a particular unit will…
Read: WHY DO THEY PAY LESS THAN I DO? → To keep it simple……in a condominium, when the board sends out its budget, that budget SHALL include reserve accounts for pavement, painting and roofing and anything else expected to cost $10,000.00 to repair or replace. However, the statute says…. This subsection does not apply to an adopted budget in which…
Read: THE OWNERS NEED TO VOTE TO WAIVE RESERVES BEFORE THE BOARD VOTES TO WAIVE RESERVES → As many officers and directors of Florida homeowner associations have learned the hard way and now know, the governing documents in a Florida homeowner’s association expire if not properly “preserved” within thirty years of the documents originally being recorded. That’s right. Suddenly, you are living in…
Read: MAJOR NEW RESPONSIBILITY FOR HOA DIRECTORS → Last week we showed how it’s better to be the developer in an HOA instead of an owner. Developers can maintain control over a community forever in some instances and don’t even have to provide warranties for anything they build. Nice. We told you it gets worse and here’s why….. Under Florida law, a…
Read: IT'S BETTER TO BE THE DEVELOPER IN AN HOA–PART 2 → When it comes to Florida Statute 720, there’s no question that you would rather be the developer than the homeowner. At least The Florida Condominium Act has a drop-dead seven year deadline where the developer must turn over majority control of the Board of Directors to the unit owners. If you’re an HOA…
Read: IT'S BETTER TO BE THE DEVELOPER IN AN HOA-part 1 → Many of you that live in an HOA are learning or have already learned the hard way that pursuant to The Florida Marketable Record Title Act, your governing documents expire after thirty years if they are not properly preserved. That’s right. Suddenly, after 30 years, you’re no longer living in a community…
Read: BIG CHANGES TO FLORIDA HOA LAW NO MORE EXCUSES FOR FAILING TO PRESERVE YOUR DOCUMENTS → Every year at this time we head into the peak of hurricane season hoping that “the big one” stays away for another year. In my 30 years now in South Florida there have been three or 4 named storms that wreaked some havoc on our communities in South Florida and even more on the west coast and in the…
Read: HURRICANE HEADACHES → Fall is the time when Boards and their managers start scrambling to make next year’s budget. Here’s a few tips: Remember that in a condo, the budget must be mailed to the owners 14 days in advance of the budget meeting. In an HOA the association shall provide each member with a copy of the annual budget or…
Read: TIME TO MAKE THE BUDGET → I was involved this week in yet another situation where an association’s money was stolen by their management company. Literally take out of their account by a management company employee and diverted to his own. He was bright enough to create an elaborate system that made it appear legitimate bills were…
Read: WATCH THE PEOPLE WHO ARE WATCHING YOUR MONEY →Read it. Then watch it.
