Oceanside No. Three, Fisher Island: condominium rules, fees and closing points

• The association's estoppel. The association levies its own assessments, secured by its own lien (§§ 13.1–13.2). The declaration promises a certificate within 15 days (§ 13.7). Chapter 718 is now stricter: "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)). FICA's estoppel is ordered separately (master page).
• The right-of-first-refusal certificate. Every sale and every lease is first offered to the association (below). Get its waiver or termination certificate (§ 18.5); recording it with the deed is the safer course.
• Notice of the sale. The owner's notice of the outside offer, sent to the board by registered mail, starts the association's time to decide (§ 18.1).
• Any lease. If the unit is let at closing, check that the lease was approved (§ 17.8). A buyer who means to rent needs approval for each lease (below).
• No fee is set. The declaration has no transfer fee, capital contribution or working-capital payment, and the first-refusal certificate's charge is limited as in the other Island Developers declarations (§ 18.5).
• Entity buyers. A unit owned by a corporation, partnership, trust or other fiduciary may be occupied only by its officers, partners, fiduciaries and designees and their families (§ 17.1). Identify who will live in the unit.
• Parking, golf-cart and storage spaces. Storage spaces are "to be assigned to the Unit by the Developer at the closing" by written assignment that is not recorded, with a copy to the association (§ 3.3(b)). Each unit is "entitled to the exclusive use of one or more parking spaces and one or more golf cart spaces" (§ 3.3(d)(ii)), and extra parking or golf-cart spaces may be assigned (§ 3.3(d)(iii)). Get the association's record of what is assigned to the unit.

Yes, on sales and leases: "No Unit Owner other than the Developer may sell his Unit and no Unit Owner may lease his Unit except by complying with the following provisions" (§ 18).

1. Notice. An owner who receives a bona fide offer to purchase or lease the unit, and means to accept it, gives the board notice "by registered mail", with the offeror's name and address, the terms, and any further information the board may reasonably require (§ 18.1).
2. Thirty days. "Not later than thirty (30) days after receipt of such notice", with that information, the association or its designee may elect by certified mail to buy or lease on the same terms. Title closes, or the lease is signed, at the association's attorneys' office "within forty five (45) days"; the seller pays the documentary stamps and other taxes on the sale and delivers an abstract or title binder 30 days before closing.
3. Twenty days, and sixty. A later sentence frees the owner if the association fails to accept, or to reject a proposed lease, within 20 days, and the owner may then accept the outside offer within 60 days. The 20 days conflict with the 30 (master page). Allow 30, and rely on the certificate.
4. A members' vote. The association needs the approval of a majority of the units present at a meeting to exercise the option (§ 18.2).
5. Voidable sales. A sale that does not comply "shall be voidable" (§ 18.1).

Exempt (§§ 18.7–18.9): transfers to the owner's family, or to a trust or entity wholly owned by them; the Developer; the association; foreclosure; an Institutional First Mortgagee; gifts and devises. Mortgages are unrestricted.

Yes, with the association's approval, once a calendar year (§ 17.8):

• "No portion of a Unit (other than an entire Unit) may be rented." "All leases shall be in writing, be approved by the Association", and must let the association terminate the lease on the tenant's default.
• "A unit may be leased no more than one (1) time in any calendar year." 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.
• The association may require an escrow of up to "one month's rental", refunded within 15 days after the tenant leaves.
• The section also covers subleases, assignments, and renewals that change more than the expiration date and rent, and every lease also goes through the right of first refusal.

No minimum term, form, fee or time limit for the approval is stated, apart from the 20-day language in § 18.1. A guest staying more than one month is a lessee (§ 17.1). Because every lease needs the association's approval, FICA may refuse the ferry to a tenant whose lease was not approved in advance (master page).

No leasing amendment is in our set. One made later would be limited by Chapter 718: an amendment that prohibits renting, changes the rental term or limits how often a unit may be rented "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)).

• The lien. The association's lien is effective as of the recording of the declaration (§ 13.2). "No fine shall exceed $50.00 … No fine shall become a lien upon a Unit" (By-Laws).
• The buyer owes the seller's arrears. The grantee is jointly and severally liable for the seller's unpaid assessments (§ 13.1), as a unit owner is under Chapter 718: "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, an Institutional First Mortgagee taking title is not liable for earlier assessments unless a claim of lien was recorded before the foreclosed mortgage (§ 13.5). Chapter 718 now makes a first mortgagee that acquires title by foreclosure or deed in lieu owe the lesser of the unpaid 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 rule governs a particular sale is for underwriting; the estoppel shows what the association claims.
• A disclaimer of warranties binds later buyers. The Developer disclaims all warranties except those the Condominium Act itself gives, and "ALL UNIT OWNERS, BY VIRTUE OF THEIR ACCEPTANCE OF TITLE … (WHETHER FROM THE DEVELOPER OR ANOTHER PARTY) SHALL BE DEEMED TO HAVE AUTOMATICALLY WAIVED" them (§ 25). Because of this section, the "Additional Provisions" are § 26 here, not § 25 as in the Building 80 and No. Two declarations.
• Amending the declaration takes owners of more than 50% of the units together with 66 2/3% of the board, or owners of more than 80% of the units (§ 6.1). Termination needs 80% of the interests and the Primary Institutional First Mortgagee (§ 20), and the association needs a 75% vote to sue (§ 26.2).
• The pool is shared outward. Section 22 lets an adjacent condominium's owners, if its declaration so provides, use the pool "located within the Condominium Property", with costs shared by unit count, and "The Association shall be empowered to regulate the use of the swimming pool". Oceanside No. Four's declaration names this condominium as the one whose pool its owners use (Oceanside No. Four Declaration § 22, OR 15500/3243), and No. Four's owners share the cost by unit count. Ask both associations how it is divided.
• Unit boundaries include the exterior glass and its frames (§ 3.2(c)).
• The developer's mortgage. The Mutual Benefit Life Insurance Company consented to the declaration, and no release is in our set. Confirm the unit was released.
• Nothing later is in our set. Oceanside No. Four's developer recorded a First Amendment with restated by-laws in December 1992; we hold no such instrument here, so the search forward from 8 November 1990 should look for one.
• Cited but not in our set: the Mutual Benefit Life mortgage and any release, and the Lindisfarne on Fisher Island, Section 3 plat. FICA's lien and the question of which master covenants govern are on the master page.