5000 Bayview, Fisher Island: buying, renting and title points in Building 50

Unlike the older Island Developers declarations, 5000 Bayview's recorded documents create no right of first refusal, the association's option to buy the unit on the terms of an outside offer. FICA approves no buyer either.

• Both estoppels. Every owner belongs to FICA (§ 23), so FICA's estoppel is ordered too. Section 13.7 gives the association 15 days from a purchaser's, owner's or mortgagee's written request and states no fee. Chapter 718 now requires 10 business days from a written or electronic request and sets fee caps.
• Parking and storage. Each unit's parking, golf-cart and storage spaces are owned in common but reserved to it (limited common elements). Each is assigned by a writing "not recorded in the Public Records", with a copy held by the association (§ 3.3(b)–(c)). The developer assigned parking at the first sale or later. Ask the association for the unit's assignments before closing. Owners accept that some parking and storage lies below the federal flood plain.
• Filings with the association. A copy of the new owner's deed, or of other proof of ownership, must reach the association (By-Laws § 11). An officer's certificate on file with the Secretary designates who votes for a corporate owner (By-Laws § 3.6(c)).

The seller supplies the resale documents. Ask the association for its current rules, since we have seen only the 2001 Schedule "A" to the By-Laws.

A 2004 amendment makes the owner pay the association's enforcement costs and legal fees, counsel's letters included, as sums "collectible in the same manner as common expenses" (§ 18.4; Official Records Book 22532, Page 2358). Its grievance procedure treats each day of a continuing violation as a separate offense and makes the owner jointly and severally liable with the violator (§ 18.3). Fines are capped at $100.00 a violation and $1,000.00 overall (By-Laws § 5.1(m)), and no fine is a lien.

An installment ten days overdue bears 15% interest a year and an administrative late fee capped at the greater of $25.00 or 5% of it (§ 13.3). After 30 days' written notice and a recorded claim of lien, the association can call the rest of the fiscal year's installments due. A claim of lien lapses after a year unless suit is filed within that year, and a bankruptcy stay extends it. Owners are deemed to have assigned their rents to the association (§ 13.3).

One lease or renewal may begin in a calendar year, for six months or more, and none needs the association's approval (§ 17.8).

Leases have to be in writing, for the whole unit, and must let the association end them if the tenant breaches the declaration or rules. The owner has to tell the association "each and every time" a tenant is to occupy the unit, and answers jointly and severally for any breach by the tenant. A reasonable escrow, capped at one month's rent, may be required. During a lease the common facilities pass to the tenant, and the owner may use them only as a guest.

FICA registers the tenant but can bar the ferry only for a missing approval, and 5000 Bayview requires none (FICA's tenant rules). None of the amendments we have read, from 2004 to 2017, changes leasing. The 2017 amendment recites one more from 2004, at OR 22532/2361, which we have not read, so check it before telling an investor buyer that § 17.8 governs. A later amendment banning rentals, changing the rental term or limiting how often a unit may be rented would bind only consenting owners and buyers taking title after it took effect (Fla. Stat. § 718.110(13)).

The association sued an entity in Case No. 04-6011 CA 20. A 2005 Circuit Court order found nothing on the record showing the case had been pursued for a year (OR 23418/2795). Unless good cause was shown at a hearing on 25 May 2005, the case would stand dismissed without prejudice, which leaves refiling open. The order does not say what the suit was about, so before insuring a unit we search the docket and Official Records for any lien, lis pendens (recorded notice of a suit) or judgment from it.

The recorded declaration has no joinder, the page where the association signs on to it. The developer's signature runs straight into Bank of America, N.A.'s consent as mortgagee, then Exhibit 1. The association's articles were filed on 5 June 2001. Nothing we read shows the gap matters, and we flag it for underwriting.

Unpaid assessments due before the transfer fall on the buyer too, jointly and severally with the seller (§ 13.1). The association's lien dates back to the declaration's recording, but against a first mortgage of record it runs only from the recording of a claim of lien (§ 13.3). A first mortgagee that takes the unit owes the lesser of six months' prior assessments or 1% of the loan's original amount (§ 13.6). That cap and Chapter 718's, the lesser of 12 months' assessments or 1%, apply only where the foreclosure named the association as a defendant. Underwriting picks between them.

The declaration changes only with "67% or more of the voting interests of all Unit Owners" (§ 6.1). Changes to the restrictions on leasing or on selling or transferring title, among other § 20.2 subjects, also need most of the banks with first mortgages on units (a Majority of Institutional First Mortgagees). Special and capital-improvement assessments over $125,000.00 in a year, or any that lift the year's total above 115% of the prior year's, need a majority of the units at an owners' meeting (§ 13.2(c)).

We searched the Miami-Dade Clerk's Official Records index, current through 9 October 2026, for 5000 Bayview's instruments recorded after the 2005 court order. It shows the 2009, 2011 and 2017 amendments above and no other amendment.