A group of Doral condo owners are taking aim at their community’s developer, alleging it retained a grip on the association years after completing the building and exempted its affiliates from the same rules imposed on the homeowners.

The Grand at Doral I condominium association says the building’s developer, Pablo Jose Valdes Florida Irrevocable Trust, transferred more than half of the building’s units — 42 of the 80 condos — to two of its affiliates, Prime Properties at Doral and Premier Properties at Doral. That gave Prime and Premier the lion’s share of votes at the building, according to the complaint.

The Valdes trust granted its affiliates a set of “developer rights” not given to other owners. The rights included renting out their units and exemption from leasing restrictions and other requirements, such as capital contributions to the association, the suit says.

Prime and Premier are managed by Lucilla Suero and Niurka Fonte-Esquivel, records show. Suero and Fonte-Esquivel were named in the lawsuit not individually but in their capacity as co-trustees of the Valdes trust.

The Miami-Dade Circuit Court suit, filed late last month, also named the Grand at Doral master association, led by Suero and Fonte-Esquivel, as a defendant. The Valdes trust wasn’t sued.

The Valdes trust completed the four-story Grand at Doral I, a cream white building with a barrel-tiled roof, in 2022. It’s at 10950 Northwest 82nd Street.

The litigation marks the latest dispute over developer control at homeowners or condo associations, as this fight for power has popped up in several communities across Florida.

At some associations, homeowners say developers have held their grip by keeping their appointees on boards of directors. Elsewhere, developers are accused of domination by having final say on association business such as taking out loans.

Valdes is the founder and president of Medley-based Biltmore Enterprises, where Suero is the general manager and Fonte-Esquivel is the chief financial officer, according to the firm’s website.

This isn’t the only litigation shrouding the trust. Grand at Doral I also is suing over alleged construction defects, and one of Valdes’ daughters has twice sued Suero and Fonte-Esquivel, claiming in a 2025 complaint self-dealing and imprudent administration of the trust that reduced its value. A judge in the case recently granted Suero and Fonte-Esquivel’s motion to dismiss, but left the door open for Ibis Valdes to re-file. The three Valdes children are 90 percent beneficiaries to the trust, and Suero and Fonte-Esquivel are each a 5 percent beneficiary, according to a separate Valdes complaint.

Requests for comment made to Biltmore and Suero and Fonte-Esquivel’s attorneys in some of the other litigation weren’t returned.

Who’s got the power?

The Grand at Doral I board was turned over to individual unit owners in 2023, but not without a fight.

In late 2022, the board members still included Suero and Fonte-Esquivel, state records show.

Around that time, the board had proposed an assessment increase, according to unit owners.

“And we as owners realized we had absolutely no say in the business of our building,” Rodolfo Forster, a unit owner, previously told The Real Deal.

As the 2023 election drew closer, an attorney argued that Premier had the right to elect a board majority, according to correspondence obtained by TRD.

Unit owners banded together and hired their own attorney, who argued otherwise and won, wresting board control from affiliates of the developer. Now Forster and two other individual unit owners serve on the board.

But now, the association says Premier, which owns 41 units, and Prime, which owns one unit, still have a majority voting power for items that require approval from at least 80 percent of all unit owners, according to the complaint. This matters because approval by the association’s members is necessary to advance items such as special assessments or tweaks to the declaration, a blueprint for the building’s governance, the complaint says.

If the Grand at Doral wanted to change its declaration, including Premier and Prime’s exemptions from unit leasing restrictions, it would need those entities’ votes of approval, the suit says.

“The only parties capable of approving amendments are the same parties claiming the benefit of the challenged provisions, Prime and Premier,” Jeannie Liebegott, the association’s attorney, wrote in the complaint.

During condo sales in 2021, the Valdes trust said in offering documents that it has the right to keep any unsold one-bedroom units and rent them out, but it didn’t circulate this document to each would-be buyer, according to the lawsuit. Prime and Premier also kept several units that have more than one bedroom.

The complaint is asking the court to determine each side’s rights, including whether Prime and Premier are exempt from unit leasing restrictions, and also to weigh in on the assignment of parking spaces to the Valdes trust’s adjacent lot.