Condominiums –Effectively asking Questions of your Board
I assist owners with community association disputes. http://www.celiadeifik.com/Commercial-Litigation/Community-Association-Disputes.shtml Many condominium owners call me with one of the following types of questions:
- they feel the board or condominium manager is doing something improper or failing to enforce the covenants and rules,
- there are issues with neighbors doing something improper or receiving special treatment (selective enforcement), OR
- difficulty in getting definite & clear responses from the Board of Directors or condominium manager.
The first question I ask is: Have you complained or inquired IN WRITING to the Association AND sent it by certified mail return receipt requested? Your letter should request that the Board of Directors respond to you IN WRITING.
The Condominium Board of Directors is then REQUIRED by law to respond to you within 30 days. The response might be that they have referred it to their counsel or sought input from the State of Florida. If so, then they have 60 days for their attorney to respond to your question.
First, this may get you the response you need and close the matter. Second, If they fail to follow this protocol, the association is barred from obtaining attorney fees and costs from you in any subsequent lawsuit or proceeding arising from your inquiry.
I often tell potential clients, try this first and then contact our office if you still have no satisfaction.
Here’s the relevant subsection of Florida Statute 718.112,
“2. When a unit owner files a written inquiry by certified mail with the board of administration, the board shall respond in writing to the unit owner within 30 days of receipt of the inquiry. The board’s response shall either give a substantive response to the inquirer, notify the inquirer that a legal opinion has been requested, or notify the inquirer that advice has been requested from the division. If the board requests advice from the division, the board shall, within 10 days of its receipt of the advice, provide in writing a substantive response to the inquirer. If a legal opinion is requested, the board shall, within 60 days after the receipt of the inquiry, provide in writing a substantive response to the inquiry. The failure to provide a substantive response to the inquiry as provided herein precludes the board from recovering attorney’s fees and costs in any subsequent litigation, administrative proceeding, or arbitration arising out of the inquiry. The association may through its board of administration adopt reasonable rules and regulations regarding the frequency and manner of responding to unit owner inquiries, one of which may be that the association is only obligated to respond to one written inquiry per unit in any given 30-day period. In such a case, any additional inquiry or inquiries must be responded to in the subsequent 30-day period, or periods, as applicable.”
For the whole statute : http://www.leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0700-0799/0718/Sections/0718.112.html
