Florida HOA Lawyer Blog
The latest edition of the firm’s “Real Estate Counselor” column is authored by partner Shari Wald Garrett and appears in today’s edition of the Miami Herald. The article, which is titled “Drones Can Get Tempers Flying High in HOA Communities,” focuses on the issues stemming from the use of drones in communities with associations and the types of restrictions that many communities are putting in place. Her article reads:
. . . Owners and residents in HOA communities across the country have expressed concerns over drones equipped with cameras being capable of surveilling their properties and backyards. There have also been outcries that have made local media headlines over associations’ use of drones.
To address these issues, the Florida legislature enacted in 2015 the “Freedom from Unwanted Surveillance Act,” which bans the use of drones “equipped with an imaging device to record an image of privately owned real property or of the owner, tenant, occupant, invitee, or licensee of such property with the intent to conduct surveillance on the individual or property captured in the image in violation of such person’s reasonable expectation of privacy without his or her written consent.”
The law further clarifies that a person is presumed to have a “reasonable expectation of privacy on his or her privately owned real property if he or she is not observable by persons located at ground level in a place where they have a legal right to be, regardless of whether he or she is observable from the air with the use of a drone.”
Interestingly for municipalities and possibly also for licensed community association managers acting as agents of associations, the law does not prohibit the use of a drone “by a person or an entity engaged in a business or profession licensed by the state, or by an agent, employee, or contractor thereof, if the drone is used only to perform reasonable tasks within the scope of practice or activities permitted under such person’s license.”
