Article Courtesy of WCTV2.TV
Tallahassee
Published May 12, 2009
NORTH MIAMI BEACH, Fla. —
It's been nearly four years since the winds of Hurricane Wilma passed over
Miami-Dade County, but the residents of Buckley Towers still feel the
storm every day.
The two y-shaped towers
need extensive roof repairs, masonry work and new windows because of
Wilma's wrath. There's mold and water damage, so much so that county
officials have condemned the building -- although the county has given the
association a 20-month reprieve since a jury in February awarded the
homeowners $20 million in a claim against their insurance company.
Adding to the problem: a
couple hundred of the building's residents are having problems paying
their monthly maintenance fees. Some are in foreclosure, others lost their
jobs.
"It's a perfect
storm," sighed Mickey Simon, the treasurer of the Buckley condo
association.
While
Buckley
Towers
' myriad of legal and repair issues may be extreme, lawyers and real
estate experts in
Florida
say that hundreds, if not thousands, of condos in the
Sunshine
State
are just one hurricane away from the same situation -- especially since
the foreclosure crisis has hit the area hard. The Atlantic tropical storm
season begins June 1.
"God help us if we get
hit with another storm," said Bill Raphan, the supervisor of the
South Florida
office of the state's condo ombudsman. "Where's anybody going to get
money for anything today? It would be difficult."
It's a disaster in the
making: thousands of
Florida
condo units, both new and old, are in foreclosure. Other condo owners are
strapped financially and aren't paying their maintenance fees. Condo
associations are faced with dwindling reserves and are unable to pay for
basic services, like maintenance and security.
What if those buildings
were hit by a hurricane -- even a small one?
"It would be
devastating," said Ken Direktor, a
West Palm Beach
County
lawyer and the chairman of the Community Association Leadership Lobby,
which represents homeowner groups around the state.
"There are several
things people learn in the wake of hurricanes," he said. "People
have learned the value of having an emergency operation plan and the value
of having some money in reserves, such as an availability of a line of
credit to address emergency repairs."
Many condos, however,
simply don't have emergency cash on hand.
Take the 310-unit Mirassou
Condo in
Miami-Dade
County
. In April, officials shut off water to the residents because the condo's
association bounced a check and failed to pay a $109,000 past due bill.
Residents said the problem stemmed from a large number of foreclosures --
roughly a third of the units are bank-owned or in foreclosure. A payment
plan was agreed upon and the water flowed again, but the incident
illustrates how cash-strapped the association really is.
"If
Florida
gets one hurricane this year, you will see a lot of the associations
dead," said Jan Bergemann, president of Cyber Citizens for Justice, a
statewide grass-roots, community association group.
Bergemann notes that many
older condos -- populated by retirees -- were damaged in the eight
hurricanes that struck the state in 2004 and 2005. Because there hadn't
been a hurricane in years before that, many associations had high
deductibles on their insurance policies -- and then levied special
assessments to residents when deductibles needed to be paid.
Residents, in turn, used
credit cards or home equity lines to pay for those assessments -- credit
that is no longer available. In the case of
Buckley
Towers
in Miami-Dade, the association sued its insurer to pay for the repairs.
"If these associations
get hit with a hurricane, owners have no money to rebuild or redo whatever
is destroyed," said Bergemann, adding that newer condo buildings may
be in better shape because they were constructed with storm-resistant
windows and other features that make them withstand heavy winds.
Attorney Daniel Rosenbaum,
who represented the
Buckley
Towers
association in its successful lawsuit against the insurer, said that
abandoned units can also be a problem during storm season.
"The building is as
good as every sliding glass door and window in it," he said.
"And the foreclosure problem exacerbates in a dramatic way a
building's overall vulnerability to hurricanes."
If one unit is in
foreclosure or abandoned, he said, hurricane force wind and water can seep
in through a door or window and compromise the entire structure -- which
he says is what happened at
Buckley
Towers
.
Rosenbaum worries about the
1,300 residents of the two Buckley buildings and how they will fare this
storm season. If a hurricane watch is issued for
Miami
, Buckley's residents will face a mandatory evacuation due to the weak
structure.
"Even a small
hurricane could cause so much damage to those two buildings," he
said.
Added Simon, the Buckley condo association's treasurer: "I'm
apprehensive about hurricane season. We haven't been able to do the
repairs that we needed. We're in a hurry to get our roof done -- I don't
know if it will withstand a storm."
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