Florida HOA - Cease and Desist letter

A cease and desist, not from the courts, is merely a scare tactic and should be treated as such.

It can be a scare tactic, but it should be used if someone is engaging in illegal behavior, such as copyright infringement. For example, you may have seen online news articles that mention something that was posted on Instagram, the newspaper, or whoever might have tried to repost it, but it got yanked for copyright reasons.

In this case, the letter may have become necessary if someone displayed totally boorish and threatening behavior, such as trespassing onto a board member's property after he/she was told to stop, or sent threatening emails to all the board members. Not a "vote this way or I'll talk to all the neighbors about a recall vote", but more along the lines of "if you don't resign, there will be more than a cross burning on your lawn" or some such.

As Cathy noted, I'd have to see the letter and want to know what the person was doing and for how long to prompt the letter. If we're talking about you and you received this cease and desist letter, you should stop it before you encounter the wrong person. Or as my dad used to say "Don't let your mouth write a check your butt can't cash." Until both sides find a way to resolve whatever beef this is, the homeowner's attorney should probably be the one to send letters or make phone calls on his/her behalf.
It'll cost, but it's better than being in jail, the hospital, or the morgue.

A cease and desist letter doesn’t go away just because there is a new board. It only goes away if the event/behavior stops. As others have said, it’s the required step before meditation or a lawsuit. Obviously the new board is aware of the past issue. It could be they are going to take action.

This response is perfect. I agree.

For a certain category of HOA disputes, it is true that pre-suit mediation must be attempted. See FS 720.311 at http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0720/0720.html.

It's not clear that the disputes here fall into the categories given in 720.311.

Your "what if" is asking what recourse an owner (accused of doing something wrong) has, right, after having received a C&D letter from a prior board and the current board informs the owner that yes, the former C&D letter still applies.

The owner can do as the HOA asks.

The owner can ignore the C&D letter and expect either a second, firmer letter; a demand for mediation; a demand for arbitration (depending on the nature of the dispute); or if FS 720.311 does not apply, the filing of a lawsuit.

I was speaking to our new property management company regional director about about this issue recently. We have a homeowner that is up for fining because they disregarded one of our architectural rules. The owner thinks they are going to be able to just pay a fine and not have further action. Our attorney suggests sending a cease and desist if they don't fix the issue after paying the fine. The PM director said he saw in one community the same situation (owner just wanted to pay the fine but continue with violation) but then the attorney called for mediation with the homeowner as required by statute. The issue is, the homeowner has to pay for the mediation. Not as costly as hiring an attorney, but still time and money to attend mediation.

It sounds like this issue is more about the original poster asking for things and gettng a cease and desist to stop, not a violation of the governing documents. But I wonder if the same applies - will he be responsible for the cost of the mediation if it comes to that?

FS 720.311 seems clear to me: The parties share the costs of mediation equally, "nless otherwise agreed by the parties." Perhaps the HOA in question has a bylaw or covenant requiring the owner to pay the cost of mediation.