This survey addressing your past experience with insurance claims and adjusters is the ultimate survey in our summer series for community association owners, board members, and management professionals. Your participation is fundamental to CALL's efforts to provide real data to your public policymakers when we discuss the impact legislation has on private communities across Florida. As we head into the most active part of hurricane season, this is the perfect time to have your voice heard on this topic.
Effective June, 2019, The FAR/BAR Contract documents now include a new Rider: CC. Miami-Dade County Special Taxing District Disclosure.
Rider “CC.” should be used with contracts for the sale of certain residential property in Miami-Dade County. The rider stems from an amendment to Sec. 18-20.2 of the Miami-Dade County Code which requires that sellers disclose to buyers the existence of special taxing district(s), if applicable.
Anyone selling a residential property in Miami-Dade County should check their property tax bill and look for any non-ad valorem taxes on the bill. If those non-ad valorem taxes are due to a special taxing district assessment, then a seller must disclose the tax via contract by using the new Rider CC.
For more information about the Rider or the Ordinance, contact Scott Marcus.
We have all heard the environmentalists’ cry about the Dead Sea shrinking. Water levels are falling at an average rate of three feet per year due to evaporation and human diversion of tributaries. The opposite conundrum – sea level rise – is not occurring quite as rapidly but is equally as concerning.
Community association law is an area of practice that has experienced considerable growth in the past few years. As a result, many unqualified lawyers are jumping on the community association bandwagon. Therefore, your board should do its homework before hiring an attorney.
Whether you know it or not, the roads traveling through your subdivision are likely easements created for the purpose of providing ingress/egress access to public streets. And whether you know it or not, those easements may also benefit neighboring properties, giving them access through your subdivision to a point of entry on a public road.
While solar panels are often considered unsightly, they are a renewable energy device. For an individual home, they must be permitted by a homeowners association. However, they can be regulated. The relevant statute regarding solar panels is Section 163.04, Florida Statutes, which provides that no ordinances or laws can prohibit “the installation of solar collectors, clotheslines, or other energy devices based on renewable resources.” The Statute is not limited in it
This survey regarding Emotional Support Animals helps us to gather opinions on a hot button issue for those who live in private residential communities. ESA certificates are currently able to be obtained without the supervision of a doctor, which often leaves neighbors and property managers frustrated. Bill 1128 would require Floridians with an ESA to be certified by an MD and have an emotional or physical ailment documented.
In most county and city governments, the land use process is one that will allow for some basic decisions to be made at staff levels, with higher levels of review in the form of public hearings required for larger scale projects, or proposals that deviate too far from the established standards for a given development. The public hearings require notice to clearly affected nearby property owners and an opportunity for evidence to be presented by the petitioner, the planning department and defined affected person or groups, so a panel or magistrate can weigh the evidence and make a decision.
As many of you may know, SB 824 sponsored by Senator Diaz, would have made it much more difficult if not impossible for your private residential community to restrict or prohibit short-term rental activity on internet platforms like Airbnb. While that bill did not pass the Florida Legislature, we have every expectation that Airbnb and similar companies will push for a reboot in the 2020 Legislative Session.
In 2017, the Florida Bar and Florida Realtors made significant changes to the “As-Is” Residential Contract for Purchase and Sale and the FAR/BAR Standard Contract. One of the biggest and more controversial of the changes was the replacement of the phrase “loan commitment” with “loan approval,” and the duties such change imposed on any prospective buyer to keep the seller informed of the loan approval status. The 2017 standard real estate contracts mandated the buyer to inform the seller in writing prior to the expiration of the loan approval period (usually 30 days) if they were unable to obtain loan approval.
Effective June, 2019, The FAR/BAR Contract documents now include a new Rider: CC. Miami-Dade County Special Taxing District Disclosure.