The Key Colony Homeowners’ Association is suing the EmeraldBay building – and by extension, hundreds of its own members – for what it says is a breach of a 30-year financial practice used to manage millions of dollars in owner fees each year.
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Entrance to the Emerald Bay condominium, one of four buildings at the Key Colony complex in Key Biscayne, Fla., Feb. 7, 2023. Tensions have risen in the complex over a number of disputes. |
In turn, each building — Botanica, EmeraldBay, Tidemark, and OceanSound– then collects the HOA fees as an added charge.
The practice avoids a situation where unit owners get two separate invoices — one from the master HOA, which runs the beaches, tennis courts, and other amenities — and one from their own particular building.
But it also has meant that when a unit owner doesn’t pay his or her fees, the individual buildings have to “front” the money to HOA until the collections process runs its course. And that is the crux of the argument.
“Defendant has paid in
excess of a billion dollars in common assessments to
plaintiff, including certain amounts which remain
uncollected” wrote EmeraldBay attorney Craig Minko.
“Accordingly, any and all amounts allegedly due to the
plaintiff have been satisfied.”
A call to Louisa Conway, the EmeraldBay president, was not
returned.
In addition to a claim for a “breach of implied contract,”
the lawsuit asks the court to issue what is known as a
declaratory judgment, a legal procedure that is used to
clarify the legal situation surrounding a dispute.