Corporate condo takeover continued

Article Courtesy of The Palm Beach Post

By Kimberly Miller

Published September 8, 2013

  

Last week, The Palm Beach Post wrote about a Boynton Beach condominium community being bought out by corporate interests that want to turn it back into apartments.

  

Owners, many who paid top dollar during the height of the market, fear they’ll be forced to sell at fair market value per a 2007 law change that allows for a takeover if 80 percent of the ownership agree.
  
While it’s hard to gauge how often this is happening in Florida, astute Post reader Jan Bergemann, of Cyber Citizens for Justice, noted a recent case in Tampa and said the takeovers are happening a lot more than anyone is being told.

  

Bergemann said when Florida’s Condominium Act was changed in 2007 he called it the “Eminent Domain Bill for Condos” and screamed bloody murder about how it would hurt condo owners.
   
“Developers bought units and tried to dissolve these condos. When the owners balked, these ‘investors’ went to Tallie (sic) and got what they wanted: A bill that allowed them to force out owners. A bill making families lose their homes to greedy investors/developers,” Bergemann wrote in an email. “And the same people who cheered this bill on are now claiming that it was created to ‘protect’ owners. It was a bunch of nonsense then — and it is a bunch of nonsense now.”


How corporate takeover can cost you your condo

   

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