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| Wednesday, February 08, 2012
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JP3
(Florida)
Posts:8
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| 07/14/2010 3:59 PM |
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BACKGROUND:
I am almost embarrassed to admit that while I was on the board serving as Vice President our 30-year old Governing Docs expired under Florida's MRTA (Marketable Record Title Act). Since we were always assisted by a licensed paid Community Association Manager (CAM), it should have been the CAM's responsibility to alert the board to the necessity of dealing with the MRTA renewal process.
However, we have since learned that our property management company is somewhat incompetent and doesn't really care to adhere to FL statutes anyway. The good news is that there is no clause in the governing docs that causes automatic renewal of the docs. There is only a clause that states that the restrictions "run with the land", which I believe is overruled by the MRTA anyway.
Our board is now being run by a slightly corrupt and completely uninformed regime of directors that also ignore FL statutes and don't care what the homeowners want.
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QUESTIONS:
Given that the HOA never bothered to go through the arduous process of Covenant renewals in 2007 or since, I have the following questions:
1. How does one address this issue with a non-friendly Board and CAM (property mgmt company)? Should someone mention it at the next general homeowners meeting, or send in a letter next January when they sent out a dues request, refusing to pay the dues because the docs expired under MRTA?
2. What is the advantage of putting the board on notice about the MRTA expiration? Does one no longer have to pay dues or adhere to the new rules the new board wants to start creating? Can one or more homeowners "opt out" or "secede" from our HOA permanently because of the expired CCRs? Or, does that only occur by default if the board is unable to properly complete the MRTA CCR renewal process, which appears to be lengthy and complicated and requires a 2/3 homeowner vote in favor.
3. Does one need to hire a local attorney to do a written notification to the board to assert that you believe your title is no longer restricted due to the MRTA's 30 year expiration period?
4. Many of our homeowners already want out of our HOA, due to the fact that we have an older Phase 1 that is 33 years old and a newer Phase 2 that is about 5 or 6 years old, and the later phase wants to boss the former. Phase One homeowners even made a Secession Group website. Could the MRTA provide them the relief they need to break free of the Phase 2, since our docs date to 1977?
I would appreciate if someone with knowledge of Florida statutes and the MRTA could reply to my questions. I hope I explained them well.
Thanks in advance for your help.
For reference, I found some good info on the Florida MRTA here:
http://www.floridabar.org/DIVCOM/JN/JNJournal01.nsf/8c9f13012b96736985256aa900624829/a8a8da7514a6718885256ff10060df88!OpenDocument
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TomF5
(Florida)
Posts:1
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| 12/14/2010 1:06 PM |
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You covenants and restrictions may not have expired. I am not an attorney and cannot give legal advice. I can tell you what I did and am looking at. MRTA 30 year clock seems to start with the "root of title". Look it up - Fla statutes 712 definitions.
“Root of title” means any title transaction purporting to create or transfer the estate claimed by any person and which is the last title transaction to have been recorded at least 30 years prior to the time when marketability is being determined. The effective date of the root of title is the date on which it was recorded.
You should also look at the definition for muniments of title.
Interesting Read paste:
http://books.google.com/books?id=u-DVQctrcQ8C&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=florida+mrta+and+muniments+of+title&source=bl&ots=tGFj01JXXd&sig=impK853roPcwBrqFw8uE-ImURSk&hl=en&ei=uNYHTb3jFoO8lQfbvInrDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=florida%20mrta%20and%20muniments%20of%20title&f=false
Are your covenants and restrictions recorded on your plat?
Do your more recent covenants reference the recording of the old covenants? |
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