Article Courtesy of  The Palm Beach Post

By Pam Perez

Published March 20, 2006

JUPITER — Taking in the morning sun used to be exhilarating for Donald Mudd when he woke every morning and peered out of the balcony of his oceanfront condo.

"This beach area is a very special area," Mudd said. "It would be very hard to replace."

Those days are now a memory, swept away in recent years' hurricanes, replaced by another kind of storm at the towering Jupiter Ocean Grande One condominium.

In September, the condo board announced that damages from the 2004 hurricane season required a $3 million special assessment for reparation. That created individual $74,000 bills for residents living in the 48-unit, eight-story condominium.

Since then, the condo's windows have been draped with tarps and balconies flanked with scaffolding circling the building. Jack hammering is the common sound and feet scuttling across the scaffolding are the usual view outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.

The work also has prohibited many residents from using the multilevel covered parking garage. The repairs are expected to be done by Aug. 15.

The condo board is trying to fight the mounting bills with a lawsuit against the developer filed in January in circuit court.

Residents allege the companies hired to finish the building — they include O'Connor & Taylor Construction Inc., Rob's Interiors Inc., Tile With Style Inc., and American Residential Services of Florida Inc. — never built the structure to withstand the potential damage a hurricane could cause.

"As a direct result of developer's failure to properly construct and/or maintain the condominium building, units and other improvements, the association and the unit owners... will be required to spend sums exceeding $5 million to correct the defects," the lawsuit said.

Company representatives for O'Connor & Taylor Construction Inc. would not comment.

"It is under investigation by our experts, subcontractors and our own personnel," West Palm Beach attorney Michael Kennedy said.

This year, the recent post-hurricane court battles plaguing condo associations escalated in a lawsuit filed against Tiara condominiums in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, on Singer Island, that demands payment on a $1 million repair bill.

The Emergency Insurance Restoration Service, an Orlando-based company, alleges the Riviera Beach condominium still owes $500,000 for work completed on the 42-story oceanfront condo, according to court records.

The condominium is facing a $120 million reconstruction project. This month, the condo board received a $48.2 million payment from an insurance company to settled out of court.

Some residents at the Jupiter Ocean Grande condos are wary of the outcome on their case because this is the second suit the board has filed in an attempt to make the developer accountable for the damages.

In August, a judge dismissed the first lawsuit because no action was taken within the year after the initial filing. Florida law allows such dormant cases to be dissolved.

Despite hiring new attorneys, the lax approach has resulted in the election of new board members at the annual meeting in January.

Newly elected President Brandon Tucker decided to run for office to help oversee the repairs after buying his sixth-floor condo unit in September as a second home. The Martin County resident paid $1.74 million for the unit.

"I have a vested interest in doing this," said Tucker, a 30-year-old real estate investor.

The repair process has forced residents to make adjustments in their lifestyles.

Mudd, for example, has decided to temporarily forgo his beachfront condo for a rented house in nearby Juno Beach for $12,000 a month. He still makes daily trips to his Jupiter condo to pick up odds and ends and check on progress.

He hasn't thought about selling yet since he got such a deal by buying the unit at preconstruction prices almost seven years ago.

"The market is too good right now," Mudd said. "It would really be a tough pill to swallow if the market went the other way. That's why all of us want to repair our units."