Florida HOA Lawyer Blog
The firm’s Nicole R. Kurtz authored an article that is featured as a Board of Contributor’s 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 “Court: Association Declaration’s Reference to Alterations Encompasses Material Alterations,” focuses on a recent ruling that illustrates how Florida courts will turn to the plain and unambiguous meanings of terms in interpreting a community association’s governing documents. For associations with declarations of condominium stating that the board of directors has the authority to approve alterations to the common elements, the decision emphasizes that such authority extends to all additions or improvements to the association’s common elements, including material alterations. Nicole’s article reads:
. . . In 2016, the [Regency Tower condominium] association’s board of directors voted, without obtaining membership approval, to replace the existing Carrara marble flooring in the lobby with ceramic tile flooring. In response, one of the association’s unit owners challenged the board of directors’ authority to replace the lobby flooring without first obtaining approval from the association’s members.
The unit owner asserted his challenge by filing a petition for arbitration with the state’s Division of Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes. After the petition was dismissed by the arbitrator, he filed a lawsuit against the association in circuit court.
The owner’s position, in both the arbitration and the lawsuit, was that the association’s declaration of condominium did not include a provision detailing the procedure for approving “material alterations,” as it only referenced the board of directors’ authority to approve “alterations.” As such, the owner argued that Section 718.113(2)(a), Florida Statutes, which is triggered should there not be a procedure in an association’s declaration of condominium for the approval of material alterations, applied and precluded the board of directors from being able to unilaterally approve of the lobby flooring modification.
