Condo Living Begins To Get Ugly In Some Complexes Where Non-Delinquent Unit Owners Are Left On The Financial Hook By Their Deadbeat Neighbors

In Miami, Florida, The Miami Herald reports:

• Well into the second year of South Florida's foreclosure crisis, deadbeat condo owners are taking a heavy toll on associations [...]. Owners in or facing foreclosure often stop paying their condo fees that are needed to pay for essential utilities and services. That leaves other residents on the hook to pay the difference. Some can't cover the shortfall. As a result, the water has been shut off. And the lights. Trash is piling up and lawns are ragged. Many are going without property insurance in the depths of hurricane season.

• In condos, those who pay their bills and those who don't live cheek to jowl, fraying nerves throughout the building. Some condo owners are acting out. It's getting ugly. The frustration is fed by a legal system that affords considerable protections to delinquent owners -- too many protections, in the eyes of some of those who are current with their payments. And so, some associations are meting out their own punishment. Public humiliation is in vogue. At least two condominiums -- The Collins in Miami Beach and Island Place in North Bay Village -- and probably far more, post lists bearing the names of owners who are behind on fees. "I don't see it as a bad practice, myself,'' said Jenny Huertas, a resident of The Collins who hopes it will keep her assessments from going up. "I guess it's a way to embarrass them and get their attention that they need to take action.''(1) After appealing to nonpayers' sense of fairness failed, Eduard Sotolongo, a board member at Island Shores condo, said he started aggressively calling the towing service to haul away their cars when parked in guest spots or other unauthorized spaces.

For more, see Condos squeeze deadbeat residents (It's a mad, mad world in condo land, where those who pay their maintenance fees and those who don't live cheek to jowl, harboring bitter resentment).

See also, WFOR-TV Channel 4: Condo Associations Fight Back Against Deadbeats.

(1) While it may seem like a good idea to some to post "deadbeat lists" to embarrass unit owners into paying their delinquent maintenance fees, such a practice, when targeting owner-occupants (either full-time or part-time residents) appears to be a violation of the Florida Consumer Collection Practices Act (Sections 559.55-559.785, Florida Statutes, which provides, in pertinent part:

• Prohibited practices generally.--In collecting consumer debts, no person shall [... p]ublish or post, threaten to publish or post, or cause to be published or posted before the general public individual names or any list of names of debtors, commonly known as a deadbeat list, for the purpose of enforcing or attempting to enforce collection of consumer debts [...]. F.S. 559.72(14).

It is arguable whether this statute prohibits posting a deadbeat list of unit owners who rent out their units as investments in that this statute only applies to the collection of "consumer debts" (as opposed to debts incurred in connection with "business" or "investment" transactions), which the Florida Statute defines as follows:

• "Debt" or "consumer debt" means any obligation or alleged obligation of a consumer to pay money arising out of a transaction in which the money, property, insurance, or services which are the subject of the transaction are primarily for personal, family, or household purposes, whether or not such obligation has been reduced to judgment. F.S. 559.55(1).