Any Florida lawyers with condo association knowledge

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Here's the deal.

Bought a condo in FL.

Rules evidently say you can't put a Directv dish on the wall. There are at least 30 of these dishes installed on the wall at various apartments.

I had one put up today.

The Condo Association immediately complained.

I asked them if it's against the rules, how can there be 30+ up right now and I asked if all owners were being treated the same. There response follows and didn't really answer if they are fining everyone the same way.

Rest assured that there is no two standards of dealing with any one violation. However, I would respectfully urge that you leave Association matters to the association to deal with, be it enforcing the same on others who may be in violation. I don’t see how any one owner would be privy to confidential dealings regarding individual violations, as they get addressed. It would be a wrong excuse legally speaking for someone to commit a violation, saying “ how about others”. When you purchased the unit here, you signed to legally abide by the rules and signed for yourself, and so you are to be held responsible for your own actions. As a concerned owner, you certainly have the right to question and take up the matter further, in the manner that is provided by the association. You can request a hearing before the grievance committee, and express your disagreement or dispute the violation you received from our office.


In any case, here is what I know:

They can fine me $100 per day up to $1000. Not a big deal.
They can try to keep me from using common amenities though I don't know how they would enforce this. They don't have security running around checking the gym and pool.
I suppose they could take me to court and try to get an injunction but I'd have lots of time to move the thing to a stand or take it down before it would get this far.

The law says they can not have selective enforcement or the bylaw becomes invalid. I highly doubt all the unit owners have been taken to court.

They won't answer if other unit owners have been grandfathered in.


What would you do?
 

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What would you do?


Tell them to Fuck off
 

Rx God
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I'd guess that the others would be grandfathered in. The guy next to me has a dish on the roof but I can't get one.

I hate fucking condos and all the BS rules involved.
 

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They may claim that they are grandfathered in but in Florida, if a condo board decides it wants to enforce a rule that it hasn't enforced for years, they have to send a letter to everyone announcing the grandfathering in. Per some of the neighbors, this never happened.
 

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I believe possession is 90% of the law. The satellite is on the wall and they can't come in the unit so barring a court order and sheriff, I suppose it stays. Time will tell!
 

Rx God
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They can certainly make things difficult for you if they want to Sean !

I'd say that it is good that 30+ are up now, but these exterior areas are a common area. Who installed it it ? was there a permit involved ?

I replaced a skylight where I live ( via a contractor that works on this place often) and had to replace it again because it didn't closely enough match the other ones.

This place was built about 1965 and has 12 units . They have a circuit breaker panel built by Federal Pacific or something like that and they are a known fire hazard, plus almost 50 years old. This breaker box was also 7 feet of the ground in a kitchen area. I hired an electrician to pop it out of the other side of the wall at a more realistic height since I wanted to install cabinets were it was. ....

problem with that was the other side of the wall where it now is located is a common area, basically the top of a stairwell that is a secondary exit. The board here gave me HELL about that one ( they don't like me). Finally they said let us see a permit, my electrician pulled a permit so it was accepted and now grandfathered in. If I had an electrician buddy do it on the side for cash....they would have screwed me bad on that and shut off the power until whenever.

This is my last condo EVER ! I'd rather live in a tent than deal with Condo associations.

I don't get how they can fine you $100 a day but it stops at $1,000

Maybe you should try to become president of the board or at least become friendly with the property manager ?

The last condo place I lived at prohibited parking of motorcycles, so a few guys parked them in the bed of their trucks. I can certainly see no RV's or boats in a condo, but why a motorcycle if that was your only transportation ? If it is loud then punish that.

FUCK CONDOS !
 

Rx God
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All my neighbors have these breaker boxes that might set the whole 12 units afire at any time, but they fuck with me when I fix this foreclosed unit I bought !

[h=1]I-Team: Faulty Circuit Breakers in Thousands of Homes Could Cause Fire[/h] [h=2]The Federal Pacific Electric breakers, mostly found in homes built before 1990, sometimes don't trip[/h]
[h=5]By Chris Glorioso and Tom Burke[/h] [h=6]| Thursday, Dec 13, 2012 | Updated 1:48 PM EDT[/h] View Comments (13
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federal+pacific+circuit+breaker.jpg


Circuit breakers are designed to keep you and your family safe from fire, but one brand of breaker might not only fail to protect your family -- it could actually cause a fire. Messages left for Federal Pacific Electric, the now-defunct company that made the breakers decades ago, were not returned. Chris Glorioso reports.

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Circuit breakers are designed to keep you and your family safe from fire, but one brand of breaker might not only fail to protect your family – it could actually cause a fire.
“There’s thousands of them out there,” Clifton, N.J. Fire Chief Vince Colavitti told NBC 4 New York's I-Team. “It’s a ticking bomb waiting to happen.”
The breakers, mostly found in homes built before 1990, were made by a now-defunct company called Federal Pacific Electric, and experts tell the I-Team there are scores of those breakers in homes throughout the tri-state.
“Instant red flag. You see those and they’re suspect immediately,” said Colavitti, who is also a fire investigator.
A circuit breaker is designed to trip during an overload or short circuit, thereby cutting off the flow of electricity and preventing a fire. But if the breaker doesn’t trip, the increasing current can cause the wires to overheat, and even ignite. Sometimes, Federal Pacific Electric breakers fail to trip.
Colavitti said firefighters around the country as well as home inspectors and even some insurance companies are aware of problems with Federal Pacific Electric breakers. Some insurance companies are refusing to cover homes that have the breakers.
According to fire investigators, the Federal Pacific Electric breaker in Clarissa Rosario's New Jersey home did not trip when overheated wires were burning in the ceiling between her bedroom and the attic in 1999.
“I saw the light flickering and I thought it wasn’t normal,” said Rosario. “When I opened the attic, it was full of smoke.”
Rosario was able to grab her two children and escape. Firefighters saved her home.
A family in Longmeadow, Mass. was not as lucky. Their home was destroyed in a 1998 blaze when electrical wires overheated and the Federal Pacific Electric breaker failed to trip.
In his notes, the fire investigator on the case wrote: “The Federal Pacific Electrical panels are notorious for malfunctioning. Many of these circuit breakers fail to trip during an overload condition which causes the wiring to overheat and to ignite combustibles in the area.”
Engineer Jesse Aronstein has been studying the breakers for decades. He has testified in lawsuits against the company and published reports about the failures. According to his research, Federal Pacific Electric breakers may be associated with as many as 2,800 electrical fires each year in the U.S.
“People should know that these have a high defect rate and should be advised to have them replaced,” said Aronstein.
Aronstein said Federal Pacific Electric cheated on testing and inspections decades ago to achieve approval from Underwriters Laboratories, a nonprofit product safety testing and certification organization. Nearly every item using or carrying electricity sold in the United States is tested and verified by UL.
“They were applying UL labels to products that did not meet the UL requirement,” said Aronstein.
According to Aronstein, representatives of Federal Pacific Electric would use a remote control to “trip” the breaker if it didn’t trip properly during UL testing.
A 1982 Security and Exchange Commission filing by a company that purchased Federal Pacific Electric reads, “UL listings on circuit breakers made by Federal Pacific had previously been obtained through the use of deceptive and improper practices.”
The company and UL ultimately removed the UL listing for the breakers, but not before millions had been sold from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Not every Federal Pacific Electric breaker will fail to trip if overloaded and, after the company was bought in the early 1980s, the breakers were modified and did legitimately pass UL inspection.
According to Aronstein, the safer, working breakers are marked with a white dot on the on/off toggle switch. He also suggested that anyone with a Federal Pacific Electric breaker contact an electrician to determine if it should be replaced.
Federal Pacific Electric is no longer in business and was ultimately divested by the company that purchased FPE. It exists now only as a legal entity.
Messages left with the last known attorney for the company were not returned.
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Rx God
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I believe possession is 90% of the law. The satellite is on the wall and they can't come in the unit so barring a court order and sheriff, I suppose it stays. Time will tell!

at yet another condo place I lived at..... I built some planter boxes for flowers out of wood and painted them the appropriate color to match the deck railings and hung them over the side securely screwed in. They lasted about 3 days.

they never told me to remove them or anything . This was 2nd story. They just had had the maintenance people remove them ( presumably from an extension ladder) and place them on the concrete floor area of the deck.
 

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FL law stops them at $1000. Their next option after that is to file with the courts for an injunction and a sheriff to let them in to remove it. They clearly haven't done that with the others and FL has a selective enforcement law. Given the finances in Miami, I don't think they have the $$s. I already have the stand so if they really did file with the court I'd just move it (FCC protects that right). The nice thing is this is correctable in like 1 minute.

Anyways, I have 14 days to decide whether to take it down before I even get fined.

I sent them another email this morning asking if the other dishes are grandfathered in. They haven't responded. I also asked them how I start a petition to change the bylaw. They also haven't responded. Clearly someone is getting a kickback from the shit cable company they use (I don't think you could even find it in the phone book!)

If I hear nothing the next few days I'll get an attorney to contact them.

Lovely!

I could always just put it on the porch on a stand and paint it flourescent orange - I'm sure they would love that!
 

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They have to allow it. They can specify where to put it but they cant stop you from putting it up. I am a Florida real estate lawyer. Federal law mandates they cant stop you.
 

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The law was posted right above my post.
 

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I hate fucking condos and all the BS rules involved.

Hows this...

I'm on the board @ my condo in Flor...

by a vote of 6-1..( I voted no)...they passed...

A NO SMOKING on the Lanai...wtf

I don't even smoke and voted no...

I asked the question...Who will/can enforce this bullshit rule...

THE SMOKING POLICE....go fuck yourself...

and walked out...d-bags..
 

I'll be in the Bar..With my head on the Bar
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They have to allow it. They can specify where to put it but they cant stop you from putting it up. I am a Florida real estate lawyer. Federal law mandates they cant stop you.

Exactly....Call the satty company , they should have legal reps who can help you.
 

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Thanks Kenny.

The debate is not over allowability, its over where it should be put.

Their own rules say that the dish can be on a freestanding stand. I have one but it takes up half the balcony. That's worst case scenario.

Their rules say it can't be put on the exterior wall. This is the ideal place as it takes up no balcony space. They have a right to this rule.

My argument is that HOA or COA rules go away as far as I can tell from reading various laws if they are not enforced. They clearly didn't start enforcing this rule until very recently (per the neighbors). Per the condo association in writing, they never grandfathered any dishes in. The now see all dishes in violation but don't seem to be doing much about it other than harassing me. My view (and maybe an attorney or court will tell me I'm wrong) is that their rule is invalid as they didn't enforce it for years and they certainly can not make me take the dish down if there are 30+ other ones still up. I am pretty sure FL doesn't allow selective enforcement.

Thoughts?

Thanks in advance.

Sean
 

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they make you put in on the stand, then they need to make everyone put it on the stand. seems pretty simple.
 

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