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Article Courtesy of WFTV
Channel 9 Orlando
By
Nick Papantonis
Published July 13, 2023
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WATCH VIDEO |
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ORANGE COUNTY — The leaders of an Orange County HOA refused repeated requests by
community members to turn over documents showing how much money they were
collecting and spending, and on what, after the association spent thousands of
dollars building unauthorized speed bumps.
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The Wetherbee Lakes HOA first fell into
the spotlight in March, hours after the dark-colored speed
bumps appeared overnight. Property owners weren’t warned and
some claimed their vehicles suffered damage.
Orange County staff members said no one requested a traffic
study or permission to build the bumps on the publicly-owned
road and the builders did not follow modern design practices
and signage requirements. They forced the HOA to quickly
tear them out.
That day, several property owners began attempting to obtain
the HOA’s financial information.
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Several made written requests to the HOA’s president to view records stretching
back years. None were answered.
Joey Casella sent the president a certified letter in April. Florida law
requires records to be made available within 10 days of a certified letter being
sent.
Casella said the president refused to pick the letter up.
“The financials were never given to me,” he said.
When the HOA hired a new property management company a few weeks later, Casella
requested all financial records the HOA gave to the management company. The
company’s staff uploaded the documents to a portal, which WFTV was given access
to.
As of Thursday, the portal contained 19 monthly financial statement from the
past 10 years, far short of the 7 years’ worth of records an HOA is supposed to
maintain.
“Failure to keep them for that long could be a breach of their fiduciary duty,”
real estate attorney Mark Lippman, of Lippman Law Offices, explained.
None of the documents showed any mismanagement of the neighborhood’s finances.
Lippman said HOA members are supposed to have full access to their HOA’s
financial information, but they often only care when dues go up or special
assessments are sent out.
“I can’t say it enough. Everybody who’s in an association should go to their
meetings, and make sure that they have meetings so the board is aware that
they’re being observed,” he advised.
The HOA president did not respond to multiple attempts to contact him to ask if
copies of the missing records were being maintained and why he did not respond
to Casella’s letter.
Lippman said if someone cannot get access to their neighborhood’s documents,
they can report the HOA to the state or file a lawsuit.
“I’m not saying you have to go to every meeting, but at least be aware of what’s
going on in your community,” Lippman said.
Florida HOA
ordered to remove illegal speed bumps they installed |
