Condominium Associations

Many condos want to install more storm protection after Irma. What are the options?

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Now that Irma has come and gone and most of the dry out and cleanup has occurred, we are getting many questions from condominium association directors and officers asking how can they button up their windows, doors and sliders in the future to better avoid damage next time a hurricane may come our way.

Under Sections 718.113(5) and 718.115(e), Florida Statutes, if the maintenance, repair and replacement of hurricane shutters, impact glass, code-compliant windows or doors, or other types of code-compliant hurricane protection is the responsibility of the association in the Declaration of Condominium, the association may install such hurricane protection and assess all owners the cost thereof as a common expense.

If the maintenance, repair and replacement of such hurricane protection is the ‘Owner’ in the Declaration, then if the association obtains a majority vote of the voting interests, it can install the hurricane protection and charge individually to the unit owners based upon the cost of installation of the hurricane protection appurtenant to the unit.

In most declarations, hurricane protection is not discussed, but windows and doors are usually the maintenance, repair and replacement responsibility of the owners. If the whole building had hurricane shutters installed initially when developed, then usually the maintenance, repair and replacement of them is the association. Otherwise, usually some of the owner installed hurricane shutters on their windows and lanai as an alteration making them responsible for such shutters maintenance, repair and replacement.

If the board does not want to be in charge of installing the hurricane protection, but would rather leave it up to the individual owners to install the protection at their units but still wants to make sure everyone installs the protection, it can try to get a membership vote to amend the Declaration of Condominium to require the owners to install the protection by a certain date.

Most engineers and professionals in the hurricane protection industry will agree that the best way to protect the building from hurricane force winds and rain is to have all unit and common areas windows, sliders and door openings to the building protected. If just one window or door is broken or breached, the wind and rain can get in and cause much damage throughout the building. So, if you are looking for real protection, a plan should include installing hurricane protection on all potential openings in the building.

You may also find, that once hurricane protection has been installed in the entire building, you may get a break or credit in the association’s building insurance as well as maybe individual unit owner insurance.

Rob Samouce, a principal attorney in the Naples law firm of Samouce & Gal, P.A., concentrates his practice in the areas of community associations including condominium, cooperative and homeowners’ associations, real estate transactions, closings and related mortgage law, general business law, estate planning, construction defect litigation and general civil litigation. This column is not based on specific legal advice to anyone and is based on principles subject to change from time to time. Those persons interested in specific legal advice on topics discussed in this column should consult competent legal counsel.
Condominium Associations

Is your association protected from investor slum landlords?

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We are seeing it more and more that when local homes and condominium units are put on the market for sale, rather than being purchased by retirees or families, many are being snapped up by shrewd investors and then being turned into yearly rentals or rented on internet short-term bed and breakfast sites.

We then get the complaint calls from neighbors, who see many of the short-term daily or weekly renters treating the homes or units like resort hotels with late night loud parties and people coming and going at all hours. Others are being rented on a yearly basis leased to whomever will pay the rent: many of whom are fly-by-night unsavory folks. Until they decide to flip the units one day, the out of sight, out of mind, investor purchasers do not really care what their tenants are doing to the neighborhood as long as they keep getting their rent.

Without any protection in your association’s governing documents, there is really no way to prevent or stop this practice in your community and it seems to be getting worse every month. However, there are ways to amend your documents with a membership vote to curb these rental problems being created by the investors.

One effective method is to amend your documents to say that new purchasers cannot rent their unit until they have owned it for say three years. Another is to limit short-term rentals to no less than 30 days and have an effective screening processing in place for background approval of renters. You might want to also limit the length or rentals to say no more than six months to stop yearly rentals.

It is also important when restricting rentals to also have reasonable restrictions on guest of owners in their absence to stop the abuse of owners and renters claiming that they are “guests” rather than tenants. You could say that guests in the absence of the owner can only stay for so many days and only so many times per year.

Last, to keep bad folks from moving into your community, it is important to require new residents, who may be friends or family members of approved owners, to be background checked for approval once say they have lived in the home or unit for over 30 days.

Convicted felons, financially irresponsible people and others, whose bad character have been found by the law to not have the right to live in a community that have specific written regulations to exclude them. They can be kept out of your community if you have the proper transfer approval screening provisions in you documents.

Of course under Federal Fair Housing Laws, you cannot discriminate based upon race, religion, sex etc. in approving or disapproving potential new owners and tenants. However, you can discriminate against bad folks and they don’t have to right to live in your community if you have document language preventing them and you follow background processing procedures to properly disapprove them before they have a chance to move in.

Rob Samouce, a principal attorney in the Naples law firm of Samouce & Gal, P.A., concentrates his practice in the areas of community associations including condominium, cooperative and homeowners’ associations, real estate transactions, closings and related mortgage law, general business law, estate planning, construction defect litigation and general civil litigation. This column is not based on specific legal advice to anyone and is based on principles subject to change from time to time. Those persons interested in specific legal advice on topics discussed in this column should consult competent legal counsel.