Rental Restriction Amendment FL

RichardP14 (Florida)
Posts: 1

Posted:

We are homeowners in a 1300 home deed restricted community in Florida. Most properties are single family homes. There are twenty three "neighborhoods" in the community that are under the governance of one master set of governing documents. These documents make general mention of leasing provisions, only leased in entirety, leases in writing etc. The last sentence referencing leasing states: "The terms and restrictions on leasing for lots within a neighborhood shall be as described in the supplemental declaration for the neighborhood or the neighborhood documents."

The supplemental declaration for our thirty seven home neighborhood makes no reference to leasing restrictions. We think this omission occurred because the developer is not the original developer and was unaware that rental restrictions were to be filed with each new neighborhood. We are three months past turnover of the HOA from the developer to a resident board of directors, and even though the developer still owns property within the community, because they no longer own lots within our neighborhood they report that they cannot file an amendment to our neighborhood documents for us.

We held a vote, by hand ballot or email and received a seventy percent affirmative vote for a 90 day minimum rental term in our neighborhood and presented to the community HOA BOD for their approval and filing. That's when the sparks started to fly. The owners that do rent claim that when they took title to their property there were no restrictions on rentals and by doing so now is a taking of their property right.

If there is anyone from HOATalk.com that's chosen to stay with me this far, it gets even more complicated. Our community master governing documents state that an amendment can be filed with 67% of the "total votes in the association." Those that oppose us claim that that requires a vote of the total 1300+ homeowners, not the 37 affected owners of the neighborhood to get the supplemental declaration.

The developer’s lawyer is of the opinion that 67% is a valid threshold. Because our BOD has just been created after turnover they haven’t yet retained council. They did get an opinion from a lawyer that said we need 100% for such an amendment.

My two questions are:
Do we need 67% or 100%, and
Does it require a vote of the entire 1300+ homeowners or the 37 that would be
affected by the amendment?

DonnaS (Tennessee)
Posts: 5,671

Posted:

Richard, this is a fairly long question and I will try to make my answer short.

#1, unless the supplimental association documents state otherwise, your Master CC&R restrictions on rental lease time being 90 days minimum, that will be what your sub association will follow.

#2 Those already having tenants in position will be allowed to keep those current tenants from the previously established rules. When those tenants leave, the landlords will then be required to follow the new rules.(like it or not)

#3 Your community documents state that 67% are required to pass an amendment, which you did have. The only time that you will see a 100% approval for a change is #1, when the governing documents STATE SO or if the association wants to rid themselves of amenities such as land or a clubhouse or major items such as a pool.

Sorry, but from what you have posted, the amendment sounds legal according to your documents. I own a rental unit in S. Florida where they tried to prohibit all rentals. After some very hard P.R and leg work, we managed to change the rental policy to a 2 year ownership PRIOR to being able to rent out a unit. This really put the brakes on all of the speculator buyers a couple of years back. Long time renters were vested in.