Article Courtesy of The Miami Herald
By Brenda Medina
Published May 14, 2016
It was an open secret.
For years, the allegations of fraud, financial mismanagement and other
violations in Miami-Dade condominiums had been reaching the ears of
government officials, some of them now confess.
Yet proposals to
strengthen condo laws and regulations in the last two state
legislative sessions in Tallahassee never were approved.
Police departments kept referring complainants to civil
courts or the state Department of Business and Professional
Regulations (DBPR), which supervises some condo-related
issues. And the DBPR insisted it did not have the authority
to investigate many of the complaints.
But now the issue has jumped into the public spotlight,
following an investigation by el Nuevo Herald and Univision
23, and groups of condo owners who are organizing to make
themselves heard.
In an election year, the scandals have forced several public
officials to address a problem that some county residents
fear will only get worse as more and more condos are built
in Miami-Dade.
“We have to realize
that a lot of times the government is reactive,” state Sen.
Miguel Diaz de la Portilla said during a panel discussion
last week organized by the Brickell Neighbors Association. |
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Rafael Consuegra cups his ears to listen to the
Brickell Homeowners Association during a discussion of local and
statewide legislative issues impacting Brickell homeowners and
businesses on Wednesday, May 4, 2016.
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Also at the meeting were county commissioner Xavier Suarez; Raquel Regalado,
a school board member who is running for the county mayor's job; Miami
commissioner Ken Russell; and state Rep. Jose Javier Rodriguez, who is
running against Diaz de la Portilla.
“We swing things in one direction, and then you sit it out and you see what
happens with that, then in two years we swing in another direction,” added
Diaz de la Portilla, referring to the last round of changes in condo laws
and regulations approved in 2008, which “restricted” the power of the DBPR
“to police” the associations of property owners.
Moderator Rosa de la Camara, a lawyer with the firm Becker & Poliakoff,
asked Diaz what can be done to avoid the annual “sweep” of money from the
Condominium Trust Fund. Condo owners pay into the fund $4 per year for each
condo unit. (There are about 1.6 million units in Florida, nearly 40 percent
of then in Miami-Dade and Broward). Since 2009, however, the state has been
spending part of the money on other issues, drawing criticism from lawmakers
and advocates for condo owners.
“Part of the problem is that in reality we have a toothless DBPR, with
really not enough personnel and enough resources to enforce the law,” said
Diaz de la Portilla, who added the agency should be given all the money when
it receives more power. “By giving them the teeth that they need to enforce
the law, then you tie those dollars to those functions and you put it in a
lock-box, so to speak.”
Rodriguez said part of the problem is that proposals for legislative changes
that would give more power to condo owners to control their condos and
regulate associations never get anywhere in Tallahassee.
“Unfortunately, to get a lot of these proposals approved, sometimes it takes
a crisis, because there are a lot of forces lobbying for the status quo and
against the rights of individual homeowners,” said Rodriguez, who described
dealing with the DBPR as “frustrating” because the agency will ask owners to
“basically prove their cases” and produce the evidence before an
investigation can be launched.
“Almost in every case, if the homeowners are fortunate and they have a lot
of neighbors involved, they can affect the character of their board and get
changes that way. For some buildings, that is not an option and they have to
hire outside counsel. That’s a horrible situation for homeowners,” said
Rodriguez, who used to work with condo owners in low-income areas during his
tenure at Dade Legal Aid.
“People should call their representatives, the officials, and tell them,
'Hey, use the power you do have to give the money (to the DBPR). Use the
authority you have, even if it's limited.”
Regalado said condo owners in Miami-Dade cannot wait for changes in
Tallahassee to resolve problems in their complexes.
“The truth is that it takes more than one (legislative) session to get any
(legal reforms) passed,” she said. “Usually two or three years. It has to be
something really strong to pass on the first try.”
“Before talking about creating new laws or giving laws more teeth, let's
talk about what we can do now,” Regalado added.
Regalado, who is running against county Mayor Carlos Gimenez, criticized the
shortage of police agents assigned to investigate condominium frauds. “This
problem has been the result of negligence,” she said.
The Miami-Dade police department launched an investigation after el Nuevo
Herald and Univision 23 documented a string of scandals, including electoral
fraud and scams on contract awards, never addressed by local or state
officials despite complaints from owners.
Police Chief Juan Perez has said the department would begin to record and
investigate complaints of condo crimes and promised to support creating a
special task force proposed by Commissioner Bruno Barreiro.
Gimenez met with condo owners in April and promised to go to Tallahassee to
support an effort to strengthen condo laws and regulations proposed by state
Rep. Jose Felix Diaz.
During an April protest in Doral by hundreds of condo owners, organizers
stressed that they wanted officials to fulfill the promises they had made.
“We don't want this to remain just promises,” said William Mendieta,
resident of the Las Vistas condos in Doral.
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