Two Questions! Florida HOA

I find the law to be fair and reasonable. California and a number of other states have a similar law. In other states, I think you will find that governing documents give owners an easement for ingress and egress. I suspect that there are numerous court cases upholding that.

Access to property should not be prohibited, although I have no problem with making it a tad more difficult, such as taking away an automatic pass through the gate vs having to stop to enter a key code.

Carlos - last question first.

Yes, you can fine for multiple things. So you can fine for each of the three issues at $100 per day until you reach the maximum for EACH of the items. Remember, that per the statute, once they file a lease with you or cure the other issues, the fine goes away unless it's 30 days after you levied the fine and notified them.

Second, FS 720.3085(3) says this:

Assessments and installments on assessments that are not paid when due bear interest from the due date until paid at the rate provided in the declaration of covenants or the bylaws of the association, which rate may not exceed the rate allowed by law. If no rate is provided in the declaration or bylaws, simple interest accrues at the rate of 18 percent per year. Notwithstanding the declaration or bylaws, compound interest may not accrue on assessments and installments on assessments that are not paid when due.
(a) If the declaration or bylaws so provide, the association may also charge an administrative late fee not to exceed the greater of $25 or 5 percent of the amount of each installment that is paid past the due date.

So it appears you can't charge a late fee larger than $25. However, you can charge interest since it says from the due date, and the interest rate allowed, unless your documents say otherwise, is 18% per annum. You would have to figure out the interest rate monthly since it happened since the amount would be larger as the balance grows.

Hope everyone had a good weekend.
I also hope everyone remains safe as this big hurricane is headed towards Florida soon...

Just wanted to follow up:

The deadline we had originally given the Owners regarding the current tenants has passed.
Do we need to set them up with the grievance committee prior the fine being in order? or can we say a fine is being accessed now.
*Do they need to be notified by mail? Currently we have been communication with them via email/phone
They have been responsive, but we currently don't have a mailing address.

Regarding the homeowners that are currently past due
We have now added the interest rate of 18%

"If a member is more than 90 days delinquent in paying any fee, fine, or other monetary obligation due to the association, the association may suspend the rights of the member, or the member’s tenant, guest, or invitee, to use common areas and facilities until the fee, fine, or other monetary obligation is paid in full. This subsection does not apply to that portion of common areas used to provide access or utility services to the parcel. A suspension may not prohibit an owner or tenant of a parcel from having vehicular and pedestrian ingress to and egress from the parcel, including, but not limited to, the right to park. The notice and hearing requirements under subsection (2) do not apply to a suspension imposed under this subsection."

The residents will continue to have access into the community with the RFID.
1.For guest/UPS/FEDEX/AMAZON they use our callbox to be dialed in, can we delete their number from the call box
2.Can we restrict them from using visitor parking?
If yes to restricting them from visitor parking, can we fine them for not following what has been communicated to them?

Thank you

I don’t expect an immediate response to this because tropical storm Milton is heading towards Florida (let’s hope it dies down and not develop into a hurricane). You may want to table the issue until things calm down. It’s possible the storm might fix the problem for you – while I don’t want anyone or their property harmed, these people may leave and not return, for whatever reason.
That said, here are my suggestions:

1 – How does the grievance committee normally handle rule violations? If it’s responsible for holding hearings on this stuff, send your letter by snail mail AND email. You should be able to get a delivery and read receipt for the email (that’s how it works in Outlook) and you could send the snail mail via certified mail with a return receipt requested. I wouldn’t risk them tossing the letter and then claiming they never received it – at least get some proof it hit the mailbox.

(How is it you don’t have a mailing address??? Has anyone checked with the property assessor or recorder’s office to see where tax notifications are sent? That would be a start).
The letter should state the homeowner has two options ((a) file an appeal with the grievance committee or (b) fix the problem within X number of days (at this point, I’d say 10 days) and provide verification of the same. You can always have the property manager swing by the unit to see what’s happened.

If the problems remains, a fine of X amount will be assessed. Since you don’t seem to have a policy on fines, go with the $100 Lori mentioned. If you have any other questions on what state law says about fines, talk to your association attorney.

If this escalates, I do hope you saved the previous emails and notes on what was discussed in the phone calls (date, start and end time of the call, who spoke to the owner, the owner’s name or representative’s name and a summary of what was discussed.). You’ll need that if this goes to court, and it wouldn’t hurt to talk to close neighbors who can testify as to when the extra people and cars showed up, along with other problems, if appropriate (e.g. noise – they need to be specific and testify as to when they spoke to the tenants and /or owner about the problems, as well as notify the board).

2 – forget about restricting visitor parking. Your documents say vehicular and pedestrian ingress and egress for utilities can’t be suspended and if what you’ve said is correct, you already have grounds to sue the owner/landlord and the owners of the delinquent units. Why are you trying to shoot yourselves in the foot by daring them to file a lawsuit against you? If you want to restrict parking (which I suspect you won’t be able to do), talk to your association attorney to see if and how this should be done.

3 – for the delinquent homeowners, turn that over to the association attorney immediately for collection. They’ve had six months to fix this and either can’t or refuse to, and your documents state a lien can be filed if the money isn’t paid within 45 days from the second letter. Follow your bloody documents and file that lien. You can send the homeowners a notice that they’ve been turned over to the attorney and from this point on, any contact regarding this matter should be referred to him or her. Oh, and tell them they’ll be responsible for all legal costs and attorneys’ fees, in addition to the unpaid assessments and interest, if you charge it. Better yet, list all those costs in your letter with the total.

These folks with either pay it, blow you off (again) or request a payment plan – you can talk to the attorney as to the best way to respond to the third option. I’d insist on automatic deductions from a bank account or credit card (if the payment doesn’t go through, you can add bank fees to that), the amount paid must cover current and previous assessments (payments can be applied to the older amount first). As a bit of an incentive, you can consider dropping the late fees if the account is made current within 90 days – six months, depending on how much they owe. That amount should be based on the total of interest, delinquent assessments and collection costs. I wouldn’t tell them that right away – wait a few months and see how it goes.

Insist this be in writing and note the plan must be approved by the board and its decision is final. If they don’t pay up immediate or sign the agreement, all bets are off – file the lien and then you can decide if that will be followed by a foreclosure. Foreclosures are the nuclear option, so be sure your attorney tells you much that will cost and if there’s a mortgage on the property. The mortgage company will be paid before the association, so if the owners are behind there, it may be best to file your lien and wait until they pull the trigger and foreclose themselves.

Depending on what happens with Milton and what may have already happened with Helene, you need to consider your options carefully, as the association will have to pay for legal action before anything happens. You can ask that your expenses be reimbursed by the homeowner, but the home is heavily damaged, you may not get anything. There are lots of old conversations on the pros and cons of foreclosure - read a few and bring your questions to your attorney.

PS: Now, do you see what I suggested in my last post that you need policies on what happens after a violation is identified and the homeowner blows you off? Homeowners should already know there is a fine schedule, how much they are and when they start, when the issue will be elevated to the association attorney, that they’ll be responsible for reimbursing the association for legal costs and attorney’s fees, plus paying for any damage to the common area, what privileges will be suspended, etc. However this ends, you need to have a sit down with the association attorney to fix this, draft your policies, approve them via a resolution presented during an open board meeting, and then send copies to the homeowners with an effective date (30 days from the date of the resolution is a good start). Good luck with everything!

Many states, including Calif, do not permit barring owners from their deeded HOA property.

I assume, as in Calif. an HOA cannot disable access to elevator service to the Owner's floor. Nor access to water?

AND, through due process, i.e., hearings, etc., in Calif CA HOAs, CC&Rs usually allow boards to "suspend privileges." So violators of any kind can. be forced to get out of thier car and use their fob to open our entry gate from the street vs. having the j kiosk attendant buzz them in.

Our violator's guests can be denied access to Visitor Parking --quite a perk in our downtown center w/expensive parking.

Our violator can have their fob disabled to prevent access to the pool, spa, billiards room, gym, locker room, party room.

Oh,I just noticed how redundant my post is.