Miami-Dade's mayor and state attorney announced Friday statutory changes they say are aimed at providing protection to residents of homeowners associations and owners of condominiums.
Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, Rep. Juan Carlos Porras and other state and local legislators announced proposed bills at a news conference Friday afternoon.
"Incidents of alleged criminal activity have shown how vulnerable homeowners and condominium owners can be under the present legal structure," Fernandez Rundle's office said in a statement. "Proposed changes in Florida law aim to provide a criminal bite to our existing statutes.
The bill would reduce election fraud, increase access to records, outlaw kickbacks in Florida homeowners and condo associations, and even open the door for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate complaints of corruption.
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“And so what we did was we made the law mirror our state laws, public elections and voting records," Fernandez Rundle said at the news conference. "Our records reforms are desperately needed to give homeowners and condo owners transparency to the association records. In our experience, access to association financial records allow owners to expose wrongdoing long before amounts of money can disappear or be stolen.”
Fernandez Rundle spoke out last year after residents in the Hammocks Community Association were victimized.
In November, board members were charged with stealing more than $2 million from the homeowners association. Five people in leadership with the HOA were arrested on charges from racketeering, to grand theft, to money laundering.
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"It was a reign of terror. People here were hostages," said Ana Danton, a resident of The Hammocks. “The people here can talk and speak and do meetings in their home. If they did something like against association or if they posted in Facebook or in any of the public media anything bad about the association, they were sued for defamation.”
“It is an incredible injustice," said Miami-Dade County commissioner Robert Gonzalez. "I could tell you from experience to have put everything forward to purchase your own home and then be taken advantage of.”
Fernandez Rundle said those arrested allegedly set up shell companies, stealing millions of dollars from the association over a period of several years.
"We are working to try to protect our homeowners from well, basically from governments, really small governments that are making critical decisions on their behalf," Levine Cava said. "And there hasn't been adequate access to that information and transparency."
The bill was filed in mid-February and is now working its way through committees. Hammocks residents said they’ll be going to Tallahassee to push for the passage of the bill.
