Florida HOA Lawyer Blog
Firm shareholder Michael L. Hyman authored an article that is featured as the “Board of Contributors” guest commentary column in today’s edition of the Daily Business Review, South Florida’s exclusive business daily and official court newspaper. The article, which is titled “Ruling Exposes Perils of Overzealous Buyer Screenings by Community Associations,” focuses on a recent ruling illustrating how associations that go too far in their screenings of prospective new buyers and tenants could face legal consequences. His article reads:
. . . The recent ruling ordered a Marco Island condominium association to stop its unreasonable screening practices, and the case made local headlines in the pages of the Naples Daily News.
David Mech, a prospective buyer at the Crescent Beach Condominium, sued the condominium association in December and represented himself in the case without the benefit of legal counsel. He alleged that he walked away from his $425,000 all-cash offer to purchase his dream condominium unit because he refused to comply with the associations’ request to provide his last two annual tax returns for himself and Katarina Palijusevic, who planned to invest in the unit with him.
“There’s no reason for them to know the total income for people,” he states in the newspaper article. He believed the financial screening requirement was unjustified and just “plain nosy,” so he walked away from his opportunity to acquire the Marco Island condo. “Do I really want to live in a building that has that type of board? That’s really an issue to me,” he stated.
The Collier County court judge ruled that the board’s blanket policy requiring new buyers to produce personal tax returns was “patently unreasonable.” The judge awarded Mech his legal costs and is yet to determine the final award. Mech claims that he lost approximately $4,000 just from his early withdrawal from his apartment lease in Irvine, California, prior to being informed of the tax return requirement.
