Lost in Lauderhill from Florida writes:
Dear Mister Condo,
My condominium board has paid a lot of money to our attorney for a change in our by-laws which alter the “Super Lien” status in our condo in Florida. They changed the by-laws to read that the bank’s must overlook the state statutes where we receive the lessor of 12 months or 1% of the amount of the first mortgage upon foreclosure to everything that is owed by the owner who has been foreclosed upon. Don’t you think that the state statutes overrule the condo by laws?
Mister Condo replies:
Dear Lost in Lauderhill, that is quite a quagmire! I reached out to Community Association Manager Mitch Drimmer, an expert in dues and delinquency collections at Axela Technologies for his opinion. Here is what Mitch had to say: “Your attorneys can change the bylaws all they want but if what they change is more restrictive than what the state statute is then this change counts for nothing. State statutes rule over condominium bylaws and this change may have the unintended circumstance of having a bank sue the association in order to get them to comply with what the law requires. I would get a second opinion on this change in bylaws to see if it is valid or if your association has wasted association money on a change that will not have any effect on the Florida Safe Harbor laws which are clearly laid out in 718.116 (condos) and 720.3085 (HOAs). By the way these changes in the by-laws, if effective, would be retrospective meaning that old cases would not count. Not only that but no good lender will lend money to buy an apartment if they did not know what their liability would be if they had to foreclose. I recently published an article on this very topic. You can read it here: https://www.axela-tech.com/blog/unethical-collection-practices/ Good luck.”