If you are a member of a Community Association in Florida (a Condominium Association, Cooperative Association, or Homeowners Association), then you have the absolute right to access your Association’s “Official Records.”

Florida Statutes (§718.111 for Condominiums, §719.104 for Co-ops, and §720.303 for Homeowners Associations) provide that a member of an Association has a right to have the Association’s Official Records made available to the member, upon the member submitting a written request for access.

Does your homeowners association conduct nominations from the floor at its annual election?  Recent changes to the Florida Statutes governing homeowners associations have given some associations the right to choose to forego nominations from the floor as a part of that association’s annual elections process.  But, before your association decides to take this important step out of its annual election process, you should make sure that your documents are analyzed for compliance with the statutory requirements for this action. 

As if our communities hadn’t suffered enough during this long mortgage crisis, we are just now starting to come to grips with the reality that our neighbors may not be who we thought they were.

I’m not talking aliens out of a M. Night Shyamalan or Steven Spielberg movie.  I’m talking squatters.  Squatters are occupants of properties which do not have a record ownership interest in the property, a valid lease nor are they even permitted to be on the property by the owner.  Usually, squatters have scoped out a habitable property, abandoned by the lawful owner after the owner has defaulted on the mortgage, and they move in and set up house.  They are usually able to get the utilities turned on by simply claiming to have a lease or showing a fake lease to the utility company and paying a nominal deposit.  So long as the lawful owner’s lender delays its mortgage foreclosure, squatters will occupy the property.  And rarely do owners who have abandoned their former homes care who or what happens to the property.