ONE BOARD'S OBSESSION WITH GARBAGE CANS

By Eric Glazer, Esq.

Published October 7, 2013

  

Let's do the blog a little differently this week.  Before reading on, click here and watch this report and then come back:

Kissimmee HOA walks off with residents' trash bins

    

Now that you watched the news report, I would love to get your thoughts.  Here's mine.  These garbage cans were stolen from people's property.  Period.  The association keeps justifying this bizarre move by stating that everyone had advanced notice that their garbage cans were going to be removed from the property.  So what?  There's still not a provision in the governing documents that allowed this association to send its landscapers on to the owner's property and take what isn't theirs.  One neighbor said it best when questioning whether this H.O.A. would now take bicycles left out on the lawn.

  

As you know, Jan and I will be advocating this upcoming legislative session for the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to start overseeing homeowner associations just like they are already doing for condominium associations.  This case demonstrates a perfect example of why this is necessary.  This particular Board is still arrogant enough to warn people that it's going to keep happening to them.  They are not going to stop.  The owner's property is going to repeatedly get removed from their own homes.  Now, if this were happening in a condominium, any owner would immediately have the ability to file a complaint with the D.B.P.R., an investigator would be assigned and a letter would go out to the Board advising them to cut the nonsense or face fines and penalties in the future.  Because this is an unregulated homeowner's association however, these homeowners have nobody to complain to and must take legal measures to stop the association's abuse.

 

You wonder why I pushed so hard for certification and educational courses for H.O.A. directors this past legislative session?  Look no further than this case as a perfect example of why I thought it was necessary.  Although, it would not surprise me one bit if this particular Board signed or will sign the self serving all knowing affidavit that says they read their governing documents, instead of spending a few hours at an educational seminar.  After all, they don't have the time for a class.  They're too busy walking the streets looking to take their neighbor's  garbage cans.


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About HOA & Condo Blog

Eric Glazer

Eric Glazer graduated from the University of Miami School of Law in 1992 after receiving a B.A. from NYU. He is currently entering his 20th year as a Florida lawyer practicing

community association law and is the owner of Glazer and Associates, P.A. an eight attorney law firm in Orlando and Hollywood For the past two years Eric has been the host of Condo Craze and HOAs, a weekly one hour radio show on 850 WFTL. 

See: www.condocrazeandhoas.com

  

He is the first attorney in the State of Florida that designed a course that certifies condominium residents as eligible to serve on a condominium Board of Directors and has now certified more than 2,500 Floridians. He is certified as a Circuit Court Mediator by The Florida Supreme Court and has mediated dozens of disputes between associations and unit owners. Finally, he recently argued the Cohn v. Grand Condominium case before The Florida Supreme Court, which is perhaps the single most important association law case decided by the court in a decade. 


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