 |
||||||||
|
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Community Living: Board can't pay for motel stay
By RICHARD WHITE Question: Our condominium is making repairs to our building, and we will be required to vacate the apartment. The board will not pay for a motel room or other moving expenses. Is the board required by law to pay these expenses? Answer: No. You are thinking of the association as a landlord. Its only source of income is your fees. If the association paid your moving expenses, your fees would go up -- to pay your moving expenses. Grandfathering changeQuestion: Three months ago, at our annual meeting, we approved a change to our bylaws to prohibit parking recreational vehicles in the community. Several of our owners with RVs are saying they should be grandfathered in and exempted from the changes. Who's right? Answer: Any time you change the covenants or bylaws, you should have your association attorney review the changes. It is difficult if not impossible to take away rights that an owner had when he or she purchased the property, unless the owner agrees to those changes. Too many lettersQuestion: You recently told an owner who had problems with her condominium to send the board a certified letter listing her complaints. We have the same problem, except that we are the board that receives the certified letters, and we have an agitator who floods us with them. What advice do you have for us as a board when an owner makes no effort to understand how the association runs and challenges all our policies? Answer: The state has provided a way for owners to communicate their concerns by sending a certified letter to the association. The state recognizes that abusive owners may complain too often. State law allows the board to adopt reasonable rules about the frequency, time, location, notice and manner of record inspection and copying. Your board should adopt a policy on how it handles complaints. You can limit the number of complaints or establish a deadline for receiving complaints if an aggressive owner abuses the system. Review finesQuestion: Our homeowners association levies fines on homeowners who violate deed restrictions, as our bylaws allow. Before doing so they sent out a certified mailing to all homeowners. They also issued warnings giving the violators 30 days to correct the violations. Several homeowners neither pay the fines nor communicate with the board. The board has set up a committee of three homeowners to give the violators an opportunity for a hearing. Since the violators have never asked for a hearing, is this step necessary? Answer: The new homeowner association statute, FS 720.305, addresses the procedure for fines. A committee must meet and recommend the fine before the board can impose the fine. No fine can be imposed by the board without a review by the committee. -- Write to Richard White, c/o Community Living, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731. No phone calls or personal replies by mail, but you can e-mail him at CAMquestions@att.net. Please include your name and city. Questions should concern association operations; legal opinions cannot be offered. For specific legal advice, contact an association attorney. Readers may call the state Division of Condominiums Bureau of Customer Service at (800) 226-9101 with questions or requests for materials. Or write to Bureau of Customer Service, 1940 N Monroe St., Northwood Centre, Tallahassee, FL 32399-1032. Please note that this office provides no information about homeowners' associations. The state has no bureau or department covering those associations. You can access the Bureau of Condominiums Web site at www.state.fl.us/dbpr/html/lsc/co_page.html.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
|
