What will cost of revitalization be?

The current BOD's are keeping the Lid on All Things Involved in Revitalization.. First if they do not get the 51% Vote needed on Sections #1, Section #2 and Section #3. We will be a Volunteer HOA. So let us not get the Cart before the Horse. They will have many hurdles to over come. A large majority of HOA's never get past the first hurdle. Our Leaders are always Patting each other on the back, and they think the Management Co. is so Great. The problem is they All need to look in a Mirror, and they will see the Problem. They have a very poor track record, and it is so sad that they are in Denial. But a Awakening is Coming, for both the BODs and some Residents.

Revitalization, what will it Cost? My estimate is $75,000 plus, maybe be more when all is said and done.
Titles will need to be search, I do believe. 787 titles @ $40-$50 each = Aprox. $39,000. A lot of HOA's skip this because of the cost, and the Revite gets a Nay Vote from Tallahassee. It will be interesting how this plays out.

I am still shaking my head about this.  People are either going to vote or not, why a parade?

If you have nothing else going on in your life that you have to force others to listen to your "I love S-bag" rant, how about volunteering at a nursing home, or the helping at the V.A. Hospital.  Those are people who need some time and help.   

Before all the lawsuits, I have seen this same crowd bully people out of morning coffee klatch meetings, send hate mail, scream at each other and talk behind each others back. Shame on you all.   Walking around in a parade is not going to clear a guilty conscience.  

Exactly - It's love S-bag today and then stab my neighbor in the back tomorrow. This is just moronic! 

I thing I do know, if the BODs & their Advisers had listen to a few of the Members back in 2013, they would have gained a lot of wisdom. But they just charged ahead, the Revitalization Pkg. in 2015 has issues with the green consent form/ballot. It will not pass the State of Fl.'s sniff test, so the vote will have to be done a 3rd.time.
Does this sound familiar?, it should, remember the 2 Ballot system, well one was a pole, which at first was counted as a Ballot, at first and the Internet Pkg. was stated as past. The learning curve is very slow at the present. Will it every change, I sure hope so. Or this will be a never ending Revitalization process, that will be very, very costly to all. Lets hope the future will be kind to us all.

Dick Tracy posted:




It is estimated that around $25K was spent on the last "paper" attempt at Revitalizing.  That resulted in a flawed ballot which the Management Company's () lawyers, supposedly acting in SLohA's best interests, withdrew as a condition of mediated settlement.  The lawyers were told, in writing, that the Ballots were flawed and instead of withholding the mailing of the package and inserting corrected Ballot/Consent forms, advised SLohA to "let 'er rip!" It took a 10 1/2 hour mediation for the SLohA lawyers to acknowledge that the Ballot was illegal and had to be done over.

The amount of Legal Fees budget for the next fiscal 2016-7 year is $30K and that seems right--for a start.  This was stated by Toneesha at the budget meeting with an annotation by the proposed funding.  IMO, the attorney should pick up the entire cost of the next attempt.

Remember--this entire thing began in 2012 and SLohA has been expending money on "revitalization" for 3 years with more to come.  The original problem resulted from an accidental discovery in late 2012.  At that time, Management Company began a legal inquiry on changing the Covenants to include Manufactured Homes.   Now--bear in mind SLohA was approved for Manufactured Homes by Polk County in 1994 and had at least 100 Polk-Permited homes in place.  For some unknown reason, this was not good enough for .  During the process of "discovery", it became apparent that SLohA had a much bigger problem to deal with than amending Covenants to do something that was already permitted--the problem being EXPIRED COVENANTS.  The birth of revitalization and its exhorbitant costs thus began with a legal opinion i.e. that expiration was considered a "gray area" and the Corp should go ahead and PRESERVE the later-dated Amendments and following that, proceed with amending the Covenants.

A side track here- Amendments to the Covenants are not permitted.  The Covenants to not contain an amendatory provision.  Florida considers Covenants to be a PRIVATE CONTRACT and a contract cannot be unilaterally changed unless the Contract specifically states it can be changed and how to do that.  Florida Constitution says that that there can be no retroactive application of a contract provision without 100% agreement by all parties.   In the absence of permission to change granted by the parties to the Contract, 100% of the affected parties must agree to the change (including 3rd parties who have an equitable interest in the property, such as banks).

The Covenants DO provide that individual or groups of lots can be RELEASED from The Covenants i.e. if SLohA wanted to put a playground amenity on two residential lots; the membership was authorized to vote to remove those two lots from the Covenants and RELEASE them from paying assessments, rules/regs  etc.  In law, to Amend something is ADDING TO THE BASIC PROVISION and to RELEASE is to SUBTRACT SOMETHING FROM THE BASIC PROVISION.  SLohA only has the authority to RELEASE lots from the Covenants. 

Getting back to Revitalization; it is a resurrection of the original Covenants and will not change basic legal principles.  What revitalization will do is GIVE SLohA the "missing" amendatory provision with a 66% affirmative vote.  That is Florida's statutory gift to revitalized Covenants.   But, it will NOT change the legal doctrine of contract law.  Amending can only "flesh" out something that is already there.  The only other entities that can supercede SLohA governing documents are Florida and its Counties/Cities, common law and of course, Federal laws.  That is why it was unnecessary in the first place to seek an "amendment" for manufactured homes in SLohA--our Documents were already superceded in law back in 1994 by Polk County. I presume that SLohA wanted to create a Covenanted authority to do more fiddling and diddling with the Rules and Regulations.

The point is, from that point on in 2012, SLohA has spend TENS of THOUSANDS of DOLLARS pursuing first, an unnecessary change, second--an invalid Preservation which triggered an objection by an owner that it was ILLEGAL.  This was subsequently admitted by SLohA but it spent a Lot of Money legally pursuing the dissenting owner, progressed to a legal assault on another owner--without authority--was advised when the owners defended themselves with a countersuit based on expired covenants that it COULD NOT WIN that SLohA  finally decided to start the revitalization process.  My guess is the total cost easily exceeds $150K not counting what the insurance company paid to defend SLohA.  Owners will now continue to pay for the Board's folly.  The insurance was dropped, a new carrier finally procured in the high risk/high cost surplus lines market and we STILL have another expensive revitalization to endure. The next step is that SLohA could become uninsurable at any cost and has to self-insure.

Regarding that--SLohA has already been advised that it does not have standing under the MRTA law (FS712) to revitalize because it does not meet the statutory definition of an HOA (FS720). Despite that, the Management Company and its attorneys want to launch another Hail Mary and try to get DEO to see otherwise--just as SLohA tried to do with the Invalid Preservation attempt. The Board does what wants. That is called breach of fiduciary as it is serving the and its loyalty and care is not to Owners. Owners' only recourse is to recall directors and take the corporation in a new direction away from the control of .

And, if by some chance DEO decides to approve a revitalization and then SLohA attempts to force encumbrance on non-consenting parcels with Revitalized Covenants, get ready for more legal entanglements or a possible class action by owners with homestead protections under Florida's Constitution.

Everyone should be very careful about signing ANYTHING presented by SLohA. You are reminded that a signed Ballot form which appears  to allow you to vote For or Against Revitalization--also provides CONSENT to being re-encumbered by Covenants.  Whether you want to revitalize or not, a SIGNED BALLOT is CONSENT and if you Vote NO and sign, you CONSENT.  Approval of revitalization could involve SLohA in multiple lawsuits for years with non-consenting owners (if SLohA records Covenants on non-consenting parcels) and there will be NO insurance to pay the tab!

Personally, I do not object to Revitalization of Covenants.  I object to not fully informing owners of their options and also to encumbering MY parcel with those Covenants.