There have been numerous reports of “electoral irregularities” at The Beach Club at Fountainebleau Park, Los Sueños and the Hialeah complex, Bella Venezia. These are just a portion of the hundreds of complaints submitted in 2015 by condo owners in Miami-Dade and Broward to the Florida Dept. of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), the state agency that supervises condo operations.
Florida has nearly 1.6 million condos, 38% of them in Miami-Dade and Broward. The state has long faced difficulties combating fraud and bribes to members of the board of directors and the administrative companies that they hire. Some condo associations are not even holding elections anymore.
The reason, “Sometimes, in an effort to save money we commit violations,” the administrator wrote to an owner who had complained about the lack of an election. Since the Great Recession, the budgets for the state and local regulatory agencies and state prosecutors have faced cutbacks and the challenges continue.
There have been efforts to strengthen the state laws, but the application of those laws has been inconsistent. Frustrated condo residents say they have limited options, as most of the complaints do not involve criminal activities and are handled in civil courts. After receiving several complaints in recent months from residents alleging financial mismanagement, lack of transparency and electoral fraud in condominiums, el Nuevo Herald and Univisión 23 launched their own investigation.
Their findings included at least 84 fraudulent signatures on ballots for the board of directors at The Beach Club at Fountainebleau Park. From the more than 500 complaints filed with the DBPR by condo owners in Miami-Dade in 2015, the investigation focused on the 81 cases still pending.
Of those, 27 involved alleged irregularities in elections to boards of directors — people who approve lucrative contracts for the condos and 31 involved a lack of access to information that owners have a right to obtain under state laws. Another nine cases involved allegations of financial mismanagement. The rest involved the unauthorized use of reserve funds, disputes over fines and other issues.
Miami-Dade recorded the highest number of complaints of irregularities and fraud in the administration of condos of any county in 2015, according to the DBPR. Out of 1,908 complaints received in the State of Florida, 566 were filed in Miami-Dade.
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