5100 Bayview, Fisher Island: condominium rules, fees and closing points

• The association's estoppel. The declaration promises a certificate within fifteen (15) days of a written request by a purchaser, owner or mortgagee, for which the association "may charge a reasonable fee" (§ 13.7). Chapter 718 now requires it sooner: "Within 10 business days after receiving a written or electronic request therefor … the association shall issue the estoppel certificate" (Fla. Stat. § 718.116(8)(a)). The fee caps are on our page about HOA approvals and estoppels. FICA's estoppel is ordered separately (master page).
• An information fee. For answering a prospective purchaser's or lienholder's requests beyond what the law requires, the association may charge a reasonable fee, which "shall not exceed $150.00 plus the reasonable cost of photocopying and any attorney's fees" (By-Laws § 17). No transfer fee, capital contribution or approval fee is set.
• No right of first refusal, and no approval of the buyer. Neither appears in the declaration or the By-Laws. FICA approves no buyer either (master page).
• Notice of the sale. Each owner files with the association "a copy of the deed or other document showing his ownership" (By-Laws § 11).
• Entity buyers. Where a corporation owns a unit, the person who votes for it is designated by a certificate signed by an officer and filed with the association's Secretary (By-Laws § 3.6(c)).
• Parking, golf-cart and storage assignments. These are limited common elements assigned in writing, "not recorded in the Public Records", with a copy kept by the association (§ 3.3(b)–(c)). Get the association's record of what goes with the unit. Owners accept that storage on the ground floor is below the federal flood plain (§ 3.3(b)).
• The shared-facilities charge. The condominium pays a share of the costs of 5000 Bayview's pool and generator as a common expense (§ 22). Ask both associations how it is billed and whether anything is owed.

Yes, on these terms (§ 17.8):

• the whole unit only, under a written lease that lets the association terminate it if the tenant breaks the declaration or the rules;
• "No Unit may be leased for a term of less than six (6) months and no Unit may be leased more than one (1) time, including any renewals, in any calendar year", counted by the date each lease or renewal commences;
• the owner must notify the association "each and every time his Unit is to be occupied by a Tenant", and is jointly and severally liable for the tenant's violations;
• the association may require an escrow deposit of a reasonable sum, "not to exceed the equivalent of one month's rental";
• the same limits apply to subleases, assignments and renewals that change more than the end date and rent, and while the unit is leased the tenant, not the owner, has the use of the common facilities.

The declaration requires no approval of a lease or tenant. FICA's rules let it refuse a tenant the ferry only where an association approval is required and was not obtained, but tenants still register with FICA (master page). No leasing amendment is in our set. An amendment "prohibiting unit owners from renting their units or altering the duration of the rental term or specifying or limiting the number of times unit owners are entitled to rent their units during a specified period applies only to unit owners who consent to the amendment and unit owners who acquire title to their units after the effective date of that amendment" (Fla. Stat. § 718.110(13)), so for an investor buyer the records need searching forward from 2004.

• The lien. Installments not paid within ten (10) days bear interest at "fifteen percent (15%) per annum" and a late fee of up to "the greater of $25.00 or five percent (5%)". The lien relates back to the recording of the declaration, but "as to first mortgages of record, the lien is effective from and after recording of a claim of lien" (§ 13.3). A claim of lien lasts one year unless suit is filed; each owner is deemed to assign the unit's rents to the association; and after 30 days' notice and a claim of lien the association may "accelerate and declare immediately due and payable all installments of Assessments for the remainder of the fiscal year" (§ 13.3).
• The buyer owes what the seller did not pay. In a voluntary conveyance "the grantee shall be jointly and severally liable with the grantor for all unpaid Assessments" up to the conveyance (§ 13.1), and a unit owner "is jointly and severally liable with the previous owner for all unpaid assessments that came due up to the time of transfer of title" (Fla. Stat. § 718.116(1)(a)).
• Bank-owned resales. Under the declaration a first mortgagee that takes title is liable for the lesser of six (6) months' assessments or "One percent (1%) of the original mortgage debt", and only if it joined the association in the foreclosure (§ 13.6). Chapter 718 now sets the limit at the lesser of the assessments "which accrued or came due during the 12 months immediately preceding the acquisition of title" or "One percent of the original mortgage debt" (§ 718.116(1)(b)1.). Which governs a sale is for underwriting.
• Fines are capped at $100.00 per violation and $1,000.00 in the aggregate, after a committee hearing, and no fine is a lien (By-Laws § 5.1(m)).
• The shared facilities rest on 5000 Bayview's declaration. Owners "shall have the right to use the emergency generator, and the pool, pool deck and accessory outdoor Common Element facilities" of 5000 Bayview, under a non-exclusive easement "set forth in the declaration of the Adjacent Condominium" (§ 22; 5000 Bayview Declaration § 22, OR 19711/2934). No separate cost-sharing agreement is in our set.
• The developer's mortgages. Peabody Global Real Estate Partners, L.P. and Bank of America, N.A. consented to the declaration and subordinated their mortgages to it, but the declaration gives neither mortgage's recording data. Confirm a release of the unit from each in the chain.
• Amending the declaration takes "in excess of 66 2/3% of the voting interests of all Unit Owners" (§ 6.1). An amendment directly affecting listed subjects, including "imposition of restrictions on leasing of units" and on "the selling or transferring of title to Units", also needs a Majority of Institutional First Mortgagees, whose consent may not be unreasonably withheld (§ 20.2). Special and capital-improvement assessments over $125,000.00 in a year, or raising the year's total above 115% of the year before, need a majority of the units at a meeting (§ 13.2(c)).
• Cited but not in our set: the plat of Lindisfarne on Fisher Island Section 5 (PB 137/4), the two developer mortgages, and anything recorded after 29 October 2004. The only rules in our set are the 2004 Schedule "A" attached to the By-Laws; ask for the current rules.