|
Article Courtesy of The
Miami Herald
By Brenda Robinson
Published March 15, 2022
|
Residents of the Hammocks community in Kendall outraged by 300 to 400 percent
increases in their homeowners association fees have asked the state to
investigate what they claim was a sham election that put into office the board
members who implemented the new fees.
|
In an escalating feud,
residents dissatisfied with the board’s governance have
filed 15 complaints with the Florida Department of Business
and Professional Regulation disputing the results of a
chaotic election held Jan. 3. The Hammocks association is
the largest in the state with 6,500 homeowners.
The board recently announced monthly maintenance and service
fee increases of 300 to 400 percent, which homeowners say is
not only radically unaffordable but was mandated with no
justification or explanation. The fee to the master
association is being raised from $42.67 to $170. People who
live in 18 neighborhoods within the Hammocks managed by
smaller, “inner” associations face additional substantial
fee increases.
“Whatever your monthly fee bill was before, it has gone up a
minimum of 300 percent,” said Todd Botner, who has lived in
the Hammocks since 2003 and whose total fees went from $90
to $385, a 327 percent increase.
“We understand that inflation is real, and we understand
incremental increases and special assessments, but the board
has provided no analysis as to why they are charging
homeowners three or four times as much as they did
previously. Every time we ask for information, our requests
disappear into the ether. There is no access to documents,
no access to the budget, no access to meetings, no
transparency, no accountability,” Botner added.
“We can’t even find out how much money is left in the
checking account, and with 6,500 homeowners paying fees,
that’s a lot of cash,” he said. “We used to have reserves of
at least $1 million but we think the Hammocks is now broke.”
Ana Danton, a Hammocks homeowner since 1993 who served as a
board member from 2000 to 2007, said her fees jumped from
$80 to $335, a 319 percent increase. The new fee structure
was adopted at a Jan. 28 meeting “that was held by
invitation only with no explanation of the budget and no
questions allowed,” she said. |
|
Residents of the Hammocks, a sprawling single-family
home community in Kendall, are facing 300 to 400 percent hikes in
homeowner association fees. The lawyer representing the board of the
homeowners association says that fees have not been raised in seven
years. Residents of the Hammocks, a sprawling single-family home
community in Kendall, are facing 300 to 400 percent hikes in
homeowner association fees. The lawyer representing the board of the
homeowners association says that fees have not been raised in seven
years.
|
“People can’t afford these payments and are scared they will have to move,”
Danton said. “We are hostages to this board. When I was a director we never
had to raise fees and even reduced them one year because we had excess
reserves. We carried out our fiduciary duty to manage the budget and answer
to the residents.”
Fees have not risen in seven years
Board members are not talking to the media and calls to the HOA office went
unanswered, but the association’s lawyer, Hilton Napoleon, said the board is
being unfairly depicted as dictatorial and unscrupulous. Fees had not been
hiked in seven years and it was no longer feasible to keep them low, he
said.
“If the fee had increased $130 over the course of seven years it wouldn’t
sound as drastic,” he said. “The cost of goods, services and labor has
become very expensive. Most people in Miami-Dade County would love to pay
$42 a month to live in a 3,800-acre community with 23 beaches, two community
centers, swimming pools, tennis courts, docks, nature trails, free events
and classes. Nobody likes fee increases, but it was well past time to catch
up.”
Frustration among homeowners is growing. At a neighborhood fundraising
meeting held Saturday, there were calls for hiring a lawyer to place the
association under the control of a court-appointed receiver, which Danton
believes is a more effective way to get relief for residents instead of
waiting on a lengthy investigation by the state’s Department of Business and
Professional Regulation (DBPR).
“People are looking for answers because there’s a pattern of problems that
have been worsening for several years,” Botner said. “There is desperation.
We held a meeting recently and people were crying. An older gentleman came
up to me shaking and said, ‘Please don’t forget the elderly.’
“This is a blue-collar neighborhood and people are being victimized by their
own leadership.” A recall of January’s election could be a step toward
empowering homeowners, Botner and Danton said. The Hammocks is located
between Southwest 120th Street and Kendall Drive, between Southwest 147th
and 162nd avenues.
Board election had issues, both sides say
The vote for six board positions was beset by irregularities, both sides
say. Held at the height of the omicron surge of the coronavirus pandemic,
mail-in voting was encouraged and in-person voting was limited to a two-hour
span at the clubhouse.
|
Napoleon said a
protest against reelection of any board members — organized
by a group called the Hammocks Preservation Society — was
held outside the clubhouse. When the protesters became loud
and unruly, voting was halted and people waiting in line who
had been assured they would have a chance to vote were told
to go home.
At the same time, a Hammocks security guard told voters
outside that a bomb threat had been called in, voting was
closed and the association would simply count the ballots
that had been cast, Botner and Danton said.
“The election was a debacle,” Botner said. “Only about 40
people were allowed to vote in person, hundreds of people
waiting in line were not allowed to vote and there were many
accounts of abuse of the mail-in ballots. The bomb threat
was fake. The police were not aware of any threat.”
Napoleon was inside and said there was no bomb threat.
“The election was stopped because of the protesters banging
on doors and windows and getting into an altercation with a
Hammocks security guard,” he said. “They complained about
the election and then they disrupted it. They created the
problem.” Danton said Napoleon’s account does not jibe with
what she observed. “When they saw the large number of people
who showed up to vote, they realized they had to shut down
the voting or they would lose,” she said. “That is when
people started protesting by chanting, ‘We want to vote!’”
An independent election monitor, who was posting from the
clubhouse on Facebook Live and noted his concern about the
behavior of the people outside, counted the ballots and
certified the results. |
|
Voters at the Hammocks, a large single-family home
community in Kendall, wait in line on Jan. 3, 2022, to vote for
board members of the Hammocks Community Association. Hammocks
residents have filed 15 complaints with the Florida Department of
Business and Professional Regulation in 2022 over the governance of
the community.
|
“No one from the board counted any ballots,” Napoleon said. “It was not a
situation where it came down to a few votes — there were sufficient margins of
victory.
“We will contest the complaint to the state about the election. There is no
basis to undo the election.”
As for the bomb threat, State Sen. Annette Taddeo, the Democrat whose District
40 encompasses the Hammocks, asked Miami-Dade County Police Director Alfredo
“Freddy” Ramirez III to investigate whether a threat was phoned in, noting in
her letter that “for years my office has received multiple complaints from
constituents residing in the Hammocks....As such, I took it upon myself as a
state constitutional officer to keep a close eye on the association’s election
that occurred on Jan. 3, 2022.
” Ramirez wrote back that his detective, after multiple unsuccessful attempts to
speak to the association’s public safety director, concluded there was no
credible threat and “it appears that no one that was present investigated or
took any action regarding the phone threat other than notifying residents that
they would not be allowed inside the clubhouse.”
State ‘does practically zero enforcement,’ HOA head says
Among those reelected was president Monica Ghilardi, a board member who was
appointed president by her fellow board members to replace Marglli Gallego, who
was arrested last April on accusations that she stole nearly $60,000 from the
association between 2016 and 2018.
Police said Gallego, the treasurer and president of the Hammocks Community
Association at the time, improperly used an association credit card for a wide
array of personal purchases and also spent association money to go after
enemies, ordering the community’s security guards to “harass” rival association
members and filing lawsuits against people she felt were “targeting her
unjustly.” She is awaiting trial. Her legal fees are being paid for with HOA
funds.
In 2016, Miami-Dade police arrested two former Hammocks HOA employees, charging
them with stealing $148,000. The employees used the money to shop at
supermarkets, toy stores and a popular underwear store in Hialeah, police said.
“The Hammocks has a history of corruption I think in part because it is such a
huge community and we always seem to have someone using a position of power to
take advantage of our working-class residents,” Danton said. Mike Rosenberg,
president of the Kendall Federation of Homeowner Associations, said the dispute
at the Hammocks is illustrative of “board abuse” throughout Florida and the lack
of enforcement by the DBPR.
“When it happens, like in the Hammocks, where millions of dollars seem to be
missing, the first thought is to call the DBPR, the state agency that ‘helps’
homeowners in associations,” Rosenberg said. “Unfortunately, in most cases, the
DBPR lacks the determination and enforcement tools to help. However, they are
very good at listening and writing down the problem, and then, that’s it.
“Florida has some great laws, but the DBPR does practically zero enforcement,”
Rosenberg added. “If you believe the DBPR is going to help, you will be very
disappointed.” The alternative for homeowners is to hire a lawyer, which Danton
agrees is the best strategy.
“Unfortunately, the only solution is hiring a good lawyer and start suing,”
Rosenberg said. “The boards have insurance companies, and with a good attorney,
you have a chance to clean up your board when the insurance companies see their
money is on the line.”
Dysfunctional HOAs need more state regulation, Botner said.
“As we interact with DBPR, it is continually noticeable that little to no
enforcement is done upon an HOA that is in violation. Rather, it is up to
homeowners to follow a process in DBPR that costs the victim money, and requires
attorneys and mediators in an effort to have any kind of justice when laws have
been violated,” he said. “We strongly believe that a review of how HOAs are
managed, along with how enforcement is handled, is necessary to fix issues
affecting so many Floridians.” |
