Tropicana Condo. Ass'n v. Tropical Condo., LLC

Tropicana Condo. Ass'n v. Tropical Condo., LLC

Opinion

 [*756]  SCALES, J.

Appellant, the defendant below, The Tropicana Condominium Association, Inc. (the "Association") appeals an order of the Miami-Dade County Circuit Court granting summary judgment to Appellee, the plaintiff below, Tropical Condominium, LLC ("Tropical"). We affirm in part and reverse in part.

I. Facts

] The 2007 Florida Legislature amended section 718.117 of the Condominium Act to facilitate the termination of condominiums. In particular, the amendment provided that a condominium could be terminated upon an approval vote of eighty percent of unit owners, so long as not more than ten percent of the unit owners opposed the termination. § 718.117(3), Fla. Stat. (2013). This amendment also provided that "[t]his section applies to all condominiums in this state in existence on or after July 1, 2007." § 718.117(1), Fla. Stat. (2013).

For economic benefits to accrue to its unit owners, the Association sought to take advantage of [**2]  amended section 718.117 and to terminate the condominium status of the forty-eight unit Tropicana Condominium, located in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida. This condominium, established in 1983, was governed by a Declaration of Condominium that lacked "Kaufman"¹ language, meaning that, when referencing Florida's Condominium Act, the Declaration did not contain the words "as amended from time to time." ] Absent this language in a Declaration, any changes made by the Legislature to the Condominium Act subsequent to the effective date of the Declaration do not become a part of the Declaration automatically.

In 2012, the Association's board submitted to the unit owners a series of amendments to the Declaration. Among these amendments was one that responded inadequately to the 2007 amendment to section 718.117: it reduced from one hundred percent to sixty-five percent the vote required to consent to a termination of condominium. A second attempt occurred in March  [*757]  of 2013, which changed the consent threshold to eighty percent of unit owners, a percentage that aligned with section 718.117(3). Neither these first nor second Declaration amendments included the condition set forth in section 718.117(3), allowing for an eighty percent approval of unit owners so long [**3]  as not more than ten percent did not object to termination.

A majority of Tropicana unit owners approved the Association's amendments. Section 14.5 of the Declaration, however, requires the unanimous approval of unit owners to alter the Declaration's termination provision.² The Association had not pursued a simultaneous amendment of section 14.5's requirement of a unanimous vote.

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