Article Courtesy of The Sun Sentinel

By Daniel Vasquez

Published September 21, 2011

If you own a condominium and believe a board member is committing fraud or was elected illegally, you can turn to a state regulatory agency for help — the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes. But you're out of luck if you own a home in a Florida shared community.

If you want help understanding whether your condo association is responsible for repairing a roof, just contact the Office of the Condominium Ombudsman by phone, mail or online. But don't bother if you're a homeowner with a similar concern; there is no ombudsman looking out for you.

"It's not fair," said Milena Macias, the South Florida president of a new statewide advocacy group called Community Association Member Party, or CAMP. "If the state can provide protection for condos owners, why not give it to homeowners? We just want them to use the same sort of statutory procedures that condos use."

Macias, with two other condo owners, one each respectively from Orange and Hillsborough counties, said CAMP has signed up more than 300 condo and homeowners since launching earlier this summer. Their mission, in part Macias said, is to persuade lawmakers to create an agency for homeowners, or expand the current division to include them.

She's certainly onto something. It's easy to list differences between Florida's condo and homeowners communities. Condo units are single-family, attached homes often surrounded by common areas and amenities, such as clubhouses, pools and tennis courts. Many look like — or actually are converted — apartment buildings and hotels. 

By contrast, homes in HOA communities are single-family, unattached properties that typically don't have common amenities, other than sidewalks, roads and entrances.

What's not so easy to explain is how differently state laws treat condo owners and homeowners when it comes to protecting them from financial fraud, bogus elections and other problems.

Condo owners are required to pay for the extra state oversight, while owners of HOAs pay nothing. But based on how little condo owners pay, it's a shame homeowners don't have the same bargain available to them. Condominium and cooperative owners pay a $4 per unit fee annually to fund the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes. And the statutes require all fees, fines or other money collected by the division to be paid into a trust fund. The Legislature uses this fund to pay for investigative and enforcement services, as well as a dispute resolution program.

"Having a government agency to turn to is a major distinction between homeowners in an association and condo unit owners in an association [when it comes to] rights and remedies in Florida," said attorney Lisa Magill of Becker & Poliakoff, one of the largest law firms specializing in community association law and which represents communities across the state. "Homeowners associations are not subject to governance by a regulatory agency. And dispute resolution services through the Division are limited to issues involving elections or recalls of the board." 

Here's a look at some other key law discrepancies between condos and HOAs:

Record inspections

Owners have a right to inspect official community documents, such as ledgers, owner payment histories and bank statements. But when it comes to paying for copies of those records, homeowners may have to pay much more.

Condos: The statutes say owners may be charged a "reasonable" fee without providing a figure or range. However, Magill said, arbitration precedent reflects an amount about 15 cents per page.

HOAs: Boards may charge as much as 50 cents per page copied, and charge owners for the time it costs to have a professional present. That could lead to hourly rates of $50 to $150 or more per hour, for example, to have an association attorney or property manager present.

Budget reserves

Condos: Florida law requires condo boards to collect cash via assessments for a reserve account. The amount is determined by the governing documents. Such funding can be waived by a membership vote. 

HOAs: Owners must vote to force an HOA board to have a reserves account, which can be used to pay for unforeseen and expensive problems, such as storm damage or attorney fees in a legal dispute involving the community.

Elections

HOAs: Owners are allowed to sign general proxies to give away voting rights in elections to another owner or board member.

Condos: General proxies are not allowed in elections in condo communities because lawmakers were worried the system was open to voting abuse.

Meetings

In order to host a legal election or annual membership meeting, governing documents may call for specific numbers of members who must be present, such as 75 percent or more. But when there is no figure provided in the documents, owners must turn to Florida statutes.

Condos: The default figure is a simple majority, or 50 percent of owners plus one.

HOAs: The default figure is 30 percent, meaning homeowners may elect board directors or decide major budget issues with approval of much less members compared to condos.