Florida HOA Lawyer Blog

Our firm has been conducting informative seminars for South Florida businesses and organizations since our inception in 1977, and the seminars that we are now making available as a complimentary public service for local community associations and property managers have proven to be among the most popular and helpful that we have ever conducted. We are now scheduling these and other seminars at properties throughout South Florida, and opportunities for additional presentations for local communities and property managers during the next several months are still available:

• Condominium Board Member Certification - The state of Florida now requires that condominium board members become certified by attending an approved course or submitting written certification to the association secretary. Our newest seminar has been approved to qualify for certification for board members, and it has recently been qualified for 2.5 hours of continuing education CAM credits for property managers.
• Foreclosure Issues - Our seminar entitled "To Foreclose or Not to Foreclose, That is the Question" has helped scores of South Florida community associations to understand the issues that are at the heart of the foreclosure epidemic and how they can work to avoid some of the pitfalls in the process.


• Collection Strategies - Delinquent unit owners are causing severe financial disruptions at South Florida properties, and our seminar focusing on collections covers some very helpful and cost-effective measures that community associations can utilize to maximize the results of their collections efforts.


• Service Animals - Our seminar focusing on the laws and regulations involving service animals for the disabled in Florida communities enables associations to move forward with confidence in developing and implementing their policies pertaining to these animals.

All of these seminars qualify for continuing education CAM credits for property managers, and they also help community association members and directors to gain a greater understanding of important issues in order to better serve their communities. We have a number of these seminars already scheduled for 2011, and we are pleased to offer them to additional South Florida communities and property managers in the months to come. To inquire about the possibility of arranging for one of our complimentary seminars, contact us toll-free at 1-800-737-1390 or via e-mail at info@siegfriedlaw.com.

An appellate decision in a case from Miami-Dade County Circuit Court has significant implications for community associations and the property management firms that provide them with cleaning, security, concierge and maintenance services. The appellate court reversed the lower court's decision and found that the property management firm was not entitled to a claim of lien under the state's Construction Lien Law.

The ruling by the Florida Third District Court of Appeal found that the property management firm in the case is not entitled to a claim of lien under Chapter 713 of the Florida Statutes, which is commonly known as the state's "Construction Lien Law." In its decision, the appellate panel noted that the law is intended to protect those who have provided labor and materials for the improvement of real property, and improvement is defined to mean "any building, structure, construction, demolition, excavation, solid-waste removal, landscaping, or any part thereof existing, built, erected, placed, made or done on land or other real property for its permanent benefit." The appellate court's decision notes that the condominium involved in this case, Parc Central Aventura East, was not under construction when the services were being provided by Victoria, and prior court decisions have concluded that lawn mowing and shrubbery cutting services were not lienable under the Florida lien law. It also notes that other state courts have ruled that services such as cleaning stairways, washroom grouting, and sealing of bathroom walls were also not lienable.

This ruling reaffirms that claims of lien under Florida's Construction Lien Law will not be granted to those who provide standard maintenance and upkeep services for properties that are no longer under construction. The decision will surely be referenced by the community association lawyers in South Florida at our firm and throughout the state in cases where management and maintenance services providers seek to obtain a claim of lien based on services that do not involve construction.

Be sure to enter your e-mail address in the box on the right to automatically receive all of our future blog posts on this and other important cases, decisions and laws affecting condominium associations and HOAs in Florida.

One of the important changes to the Florida condominium association laws that was enacted last year is the new certification requirement for condominium board members. Our firm recently conducted board member certification seminars in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, and we received a great deal of questions about the new requirements prior to and during these events. Here is a helpful summary of the new certification requirements for board members:

Within 90 days after being elected or appointed to a condominium board, each newly elected or appointed director must certify in writing to the secretary of the association that he or she has read the association's declaration of condominium, articles of incorporation, bylaws, and policies. Additionally, this written certification should confirm that he or she will work to uphold such documents and policies to the best of his or her ability, and will faithfully discharge his or her fiduciary responsibility to the association's members. Alternatively, a newly elected or appointed director may submit a certificate of completion after attending a board member certification course that has been approved by the state.

A director who fails to file the written certification or educational certificate within this 90-day period is suspended from serving on the board until he or she complies with this requirement. Finally, the association must retain a director's written certification or educational certificate for inspection by the members for 5 years after a director's election. However, the failure to have the certifications or certificates on file does not affect the validity of any action by the board.

It is also important to note that these new certification requirements only apply to condominium associations and not to cooperative or homeowners associations.

In the coming months, the condominium association lawyers in South Florida at our firm will continue to offer board member certification seminars to condominium association directors and property managers, as well as several other seminars and courses that qualify for continuing education CAM credits for property managers. Contact us toll free at 1-800-737-1390 or via e-mail at info@siegfriedlaw.com to inquire about the possibility of scheduling a seminar for your organization, and be sure to enter your e-mail address in the subscription box on the right in order to automatically receive all of our future blog posts.

News reports of bulk buyers acquiring blocks of unsold units at local condo developments have become a weekly fixture in the local business pages, and the underlying financials of these deals point toward a continued healthy future for bulk buyers in the months and years to come. For many South Florida condominium associations that are slowly recovering from the foreclosure crisis, these bulk buyers can represent a major financial boon for troubled properties as these buyers start paying assessments and begin to rebuild the association's coffers.

The bulk deals have been spurred by depressed values, the foreclosure crisis and several significant changes in Florida law. Last year, the state legislature implemented a change under the Distressed Condominium Relief Act to temporarily suspend for two years many of the most daunting and financially worrisome legal liabilities that bulk buyers normally incur when they acquire more than seven units in a property and resell them to individual buyers. This temporary change in the law essentially shields bulk buyers from any legal liability and responsibility for construction defects, budget issues, turnover obligations and other statutory responsibilities of the original developer. It was intended to encourage bulk buyers to acquire blocks of unsold units from developers and foreclosing lenders, and resell them at a profit to individual buyers without having to reduce their bulk purchase price by having to budget for the prior developer's obligations under the law. The law has proven to be extremely successful.

The real estate and community association attorneys in South Florida at our firm are working closely with investors that are acquiring large blocks of units as well as with the condominium associations that are now dealing with bulk buyers, which in some cases have acquired the majority of the units in a community. We are also working with many individuals who are acquiring a unit from a bulk buyer. There are a number of required filings and regulatory obligations for the bulk buyers to comply with under the new law, and the structure of the transaction has to be well planned and documented in order to avoid the liabilities that were intended to be abolished by the new law. Failure to document the transaction correctly may create inadvertent liability on the bulk buyer.

In addition, community associations and individual buyers must recognize that they no longer have the same protections under the law in transactions involving bulk buyers, so they must work with experienced attorneys in order to seek and secure these protections. Our condominium association lawyers are working with our clients to use new contractual stipulations in the sales contracts involving bulk buyers to address some of these issues.

There are significant opportunities for bulk buyers as well as lenders and community associations as a result of this new law, but to take advantage of them it is imperative to work with a qualified attorney who is highly experienced in these matters and the recent legislative changes. Our community association lawyers in South Florida will continue to write about important issues affecting residential properties throughout the state. To automatically receive all of our future posts, simply add your e-mail address in the box on the right.

Our community association lawyers in South Florida are often called upon by the local as well as national media for their authoritative insight into condominium association and homeowners association disputes. Last week, the firm's Roberto Blanch was contacted by a reporter from ABC News for a national report on a dispute at a Texas community over a homeowner's flagpole.

Click here to read the report with Roberto's comments and see the video on the ABC News website.

The foreclosure epidemic has caused significant financial difficulties for South Florida homeowners and condominium associations, and many of the strains are caused by unnecessary and troublesome delays from the foreclosing lenders. As a result, the Florida Supreme Court has adopted amendments to the rules of civil procedure relating to mortgage foreclosures based on the findings of a report by the Task Force on Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Cases, which was issued under a directive by the court. In December, the Fifth District Court of Appeals reaffirmed that the Florida courts are going to stringently enforce these amendments and policies based on the Foreclosure Task Force, as it upheld a condominium association's right to secure a court order for a post-judgment judicial sale.

In the appeal, the lender contended that trial court was not authorized to order a post-judgment judicial sale of the property or had abused its discretion in ordering the sale, which came as a result of the court's approval of a motion by the attorneys for the condominium association. The lender argued that as the judgment holder, it had the right to control when, if at all, a foreclosure sale takes place, and as the junior lien holder, the association could not demand that a foreclosure sale date be set.

In its decision, the appellate judges ruled that trial court's order comports with the Florida statutes and the policies proposed by the Foreclosure Task Force and adopted by the Florida Supreme Court in its amendments in early 2010. The ruling notes that the amendments include a list of reasons for the cancellation of a scheduled judicial sale, and the stipulation that if a sale is canceled, the plaintiff then moves to have it rescheduled. The ruling concludes: "In other words, the supreme court, in adopting the [Form 1.996(b) entitled "Motion to Cancel and Reschedule Foreclosure Sale], apparently did not contemplate that a judicial sale would be left in limbo."

The condominium association lawyers at our firm and throughout the state are going to be able to reference this decision to argue that community associations which are junior lien holders to foreclosing lenders are able to have the trial court set a sale date when the lender refuses to do so. We will continue to monitor and write about important court decisions for Florida community associations, and we encourage those who are interested in this information to enter their e-mail address in the box on the right in order to automatically receive all of our future blog posts.