Covenants Expiration Case Won by Bar bra St age, ESQ

Covenants Expiration Case Won by Bar bra St age, ESQ Mar 29, 2014 7:48:26 GMT -5

Post by Admin on Mar 29, 2014 7:48:26 GMT -5

Here is the short form but I urge you to read the entire article as a possible preview of what is to come in S-bag.

Attorney Bar bra St age won a big victory for owners living in a community where the deed-restrictions were not properly renewed. Judge William G. Sestak ruled on a Motion for Summary Judgment: "Thus, the deed restrictions were not properly extended and have expired." With other words, the HOA is no longer a HOA with valid deed restrictions.

THE “NO WHEELCHAIR” HOA IS NOT EVEN A DEED-RESTRICTED HOA!
An Opinion By Jan Bergemann
Published March 27, 2014

Remember the story in the Tampa Tribune (Clash over wheelchair access dims hopes for dream home) last week about a lawsuit over wheelchair accessibility for a location where HOA meetings were held?

Not only was the ruling contradicting any common sense, it clearly contradicted the legislative intent of the Florida statutes requiring public meetings. How public is a meeting if an owner in a wheel chair can’t participate?

Judge Lindie Babb’s ruling is in my opinion another clear example for the lack of competence of many lower court judges who are just sitting on the bench because they needed a paying job after they failed in private practice.

My thanks go to Senator Wilton Simpson who sponsored Senate Bill 1450 in order to close this embarrassing loop hole – clarifying the language regarding public access to association meetings!

The board members of the Bayhead Landings Property Owners Association, Inc. in Pasco County may have celebrated their victory last week, but this week they received a devastating blow when Judge William G. Sestak ruled on a Motion for Summary Judgment: "Thus, the deed restrictions were not properly extended and have expired." With other words, the HOA is no longer a HOA with valid deed restrictions.

Attorney Bar bra St age, who represented the owners fighting the attempted preservation of the deed-restrictions that was ruled invalid said: “This case was not about the Plaintiffs not wanting deed restrictions, but about making sure the HOA followed the rules for extending them, and issue brought up by the Whitts in their case, but became moot when the HOA revoked a “Notice of Preservation.” Another Notice of Preservation was filed later that same year. The Bylaws required the members to vote in person or by proxy at a meeting. Fla. Stat. 720 provided the same unless the HOA documents stated otherwise. Instead the HOA didn’t follow their own rules and collected ballots door-to-door, claiming the “written consent” provision in Fla. Stat. 617.0701 allowed for written consents. This totally ignored the Fla. Stat. 617.1703, which states Chapter 720 trumps Chapter 617 if there is a conflict.”

This is a typical example for a board not following their own rules, using the excuse: “It has been always done this way.” This “excuse” has cost already lots of association members a lot of money.

Fights over expired deed-restrictions are pretty common in Florida’s homeowners’ associations. The provisions dealing with COVENANT REVITALIZATION (FS 720.403-720.407) and the MARKETABLE RECORD TITLE ACT (FS 712) are pretty difficult to read and to understand. Rulings go both ways, often depending on the competence of the judge ruling on this issue.

Covenants Expiration Case Won by Bar bra St age, ESQ Apr 5, 2014 3:15:55 GMT -5

Post by Admin on Apr 5, 2014 3:15:55 GMT -5

I thought this was interesting because the homeowners are obviously under seige by this ugly 3-person BOD. First, BOD denied owners in wheelchairs access to their own meetings. When cH allenged, BOD chose to fight this in court to the tune of $70K instead of just having meetings in a wheelchair-accessible location.

The first judge agreed with HOA and BOD billed Association legal expenses back to the wheelchair person AND levied special assessments on all the owners to pay for it. When owners' requested the records to validate documented legal expenses, BOD refused!
Attachment Deleted
The homeowners got Real Mad and got Bar bra St age, Esq. after the BOD. She got them relief BIG TIME--the HOA was disbanded--caput--nada--due to failure to properly preserve their Covenants (sound familiar?). The special assessments levied AFTER the covenants expiration was illegal and must be returned to the owners. The owners are now free of this tyrannical board as long as they keep Bar bra on retainer! I am certain there are more shenanigans to come!

All this for nothing...except a new bill is being introduced to force HOA's to have meetings in places that are accessible to wheelchairs.

One footnote: SLohA cannot levy a special assessment for legal expenses. Special assessments can only be levied for repair or replacement of structures and infrastructure.

Article Courtesy of The Tampa Tribune
By Lra Kinsler
Published March 30, 2014

DADE CITY -- The neighborhood at the center of a costly dispute over wheelchair access to its homeowners association meetings has no legal authority to assess homeowners for its mounting legal bills, a Pasco County judge has ruled.

Judge William Sestak agreed with three Bayhead Landings homeowners that the association board failed to follow its own procedures for extending the neighborhood deed restrictions in 2010. He issued a court order Monday ruling that the deed restrictions and covenants expired three years ago.

“When you don’t have deed restrictions, the association becomes voluntary,” said Bar bra St age, the attorney who represented homeowners in their lawsuit against the Bayhead Landings Property Owners Association. “They’re trying to get another special assessment passed, but they can’t because they have no legal authority.”

The recent case stemmed from a lawsuit filed by homeowners Jhn and Kim Whitt, who sued the association for holding its meetings on an unfinished lakefront lot that is not wheelchair accessible. They accused the association of violating the Fair Housing Act and the section of Florida law that requires homeowner association meetings to be open to all members.

They won an emergency injunction that forced the association to meet for a year in wheelchair-accessible locations. But the case was reassigned to another judge, who dismissed the Whitts’ claim. Judge Lindie Babb ruled that “there is no legal basis to support the plaintiffs’ contention that the open meeting provision of (the law) requires wheelchair accessibility” since private community associations are not subject to the federal Americans With Disability Act.

Babb also ordered the Whitts to pay the association $20,000 in legal fees for the case, but the board still assessed homeowners thousands of dollars each for unpaid legal bills.

Dan DiCiollo, a former board member, said he never understood why the three people running the association were so determined to fight the Whitts in court.

“It was a board decision,” he said. “The members never had a vote. It became somewhat vindictive -- there was a lynch mob mentality in the community.”

The association’s legal bills reached “upwards of $70,000,” according to a letter signed by all three board members. The board passed a special assessment, charging property owners thousands of dollars to pay the legal bills.

DiCiollo said he paid the first two assessments, but when the board passed a third special assessment, he asked for documentation of the expenses. “We can’t get our hands on these Blingz,” he said. “Every time I ask to see them, the board members say it’s attorney-client
privilege.”

That’s when he and two other homeowners sought to have the community association disbanded by the court.

In his final order, Sestak wrote that he could find “no genuine issues to any material fact” that Bayhead Landings used an improper method to extend its deed restrictions, as alleged, before they were set to expire on Jan. 1, 2011. “Thus the deed restrictions were not properly extended
and have expired.”

The association attorney could not be reached for comment.

Jan Bergemann, an activist who fights abuses by homeowner associations, said the Sestak ruling should invalidate Babb’s order requiring the Whitts to pay legal fees, since the association had ceased to exist before the Whitts’ case went to court.

Meanwhile, state Sen. Wilton Simpson has introduced Senate Bill 1450, which would require private homeowners associations to meet in locations “that are accessible to physically handicapped persons.” The bill passed the Senate Community Affairs Committee, which Simpson runs, on Tuesday.