Unit owners at a two-tower condo on Brickell Avenue in Miami voted out their board president following a series of events that included the allegedly illegal passage of a $21 million special assessment.
Some condo owners at 1060 Brickell flew in from out of the country to vote in person, after their board president, Jacob Kassell, eliminated electronic voting. On Saturday they replaced him and the rest of the board with new representation: president Dorinda Spahr and new board members Pablo Lignarolo and David Treiger, according to the Miami Herald. Spahr won with 192 votes, while no one voted for Kassell. Kassell had also tried to postpone the election to December.
The five-hour meeting was supervised by two volunteers from Florida’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation. The complex at 1060 Brickell Avenue, built in 2008, has 605 units.
State law requires condo boards to receive at least 50 percent owner approval for any project that exceeds $50,000 or 115 percent of assessments for the preceding calendar year. Kassell and another board member, previously approved the assessment during a virtual meeting, the Herald reported. Residents were muted. The assessment breaks down to about $40,000 to $50,000 per owner, depending on the unit size.
Kassell told the Miami Herald that results of what he called the “mock” election on Saturday would be thrown out.
Condo associations across Florida are forced to comply with recent state laws passed after the deadly Surfside condo collapse that occurred more than three years ago. The condo safety legislation requires that associations complete structural integrity reserve studies (SIRS) by the end of this year. A structural milestone inspection is due by the end of 2025, depending on the age of a building. Any budget adopted on Jan. 1, 2025 or later must fund the SIRS reserves, which is putting financial strain on older buildings and those in need of major repairs.
Because many associations voted, for decades, to waive fully funding their reserves, a number of properties and their owners are now playing catch up.
One owner at 1060 Brickell told the Herald that the process still lacks accountability and guardrails.
Earlier this year, Florida lawmakers passed two condo and homeowners associations bills that beef up repercussions against community association board members and managers who break the rules, including criminalizing kickbacks and hiding records. The legislation was in response to the massive board fraud uncovered at the Hammocks, a 3,800-acre association that’s home to about 5,500 single-family houses, townhomes and condos.
— Katherine Kallergis
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