Residents of a Florida townhouse community say a developer has kept control of their homeowners association for almost 20 years, and they contend a hotel development played a role in extending that control.<\/p>\n
The fight is headed to court, raising questions about who controls the neighborhoods people pay to live in.<\/p>\n
According to The Real Deal<\/a>, homeowner Madeline Garcia sued Villa Portofino East HOA and PMG Asset Services over governance at Villa Portofino East, a 117-home townhouse community, saying the developer-linked board should have handed power to residents long ago.<\/p>\n The suit<\/a> says affiliates of Prime Homes at Villa Portofino East, connected to Prime Group and PMG Asset Services, stayed in charge by placing employees and other representatives on the HOA board.<\/p>\n Residents say the board and its lawyers maintain that the legal benchmark for homeowner takeover still hasn’t been reached, a position Garcia disputes in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n Residents say the board failed to transfer the HOA to the homeowners and that it is using allegedly misleading claims over local land parcels to justify the delay.<\/p>\n Garcia further alleges that common features such as gates, a pool, fences, pavers, and stormwater systems were not maintained while the developer-controlled board remained in charge.<\/p>\n A central part of the dispute involves land calculations tied to a commercial expansion.<\/p>\n The disagreement centers on a 2022 push by Prime Group affiliates to commercially rezone residential and common-area lots for a hotel development. Residents contend land withdrawn and transferred for that project was still included in the residential community, postponing the transfer of HOA authority.<\/p>\n “It’s parcel manipulation,” Garcia said. “The developer does have the right to annex\/withdraw property, but in our case they are asserting that that withdrawn property transferred for a hotel commercial expansion is still a part of our residential community.”<\/p>\n HOA control can affect dues, maintenance, repairs, property values, and whether residents have a voice in decisions that shape their daily lives.<\/p>\n If the residents are correct, they were left to pay into a community wherein key infrastructure was not maintained even as the developer kept decision-making authority.<\/p>\n The dispute also fits into a broader pattern of HOA frustration around the country.<\/p>\n In some communities, HOAs have been accused of blocking homeowners from making money-saving upgrades such as rooftop solar panels<\/a> or native plant lawns<\/a>, even when those improvements lower utility bills and reduce upkeep.<\/p>\n Filed last month in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court, Garcia’s case claims negligence and alleges a violation of Florida’s law on turning HOA control over to homeowners.<\/p>\n Get TCD’s free newsletters<\/a> for easy tips, smart advice, and a chance to earn $5,000 toward home upgrades. To see more stories like this one, change your Google preferences here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents of a Florida townhouse community say a developer has kept control of their homeowners association for almost…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5225,28,30,29,14912,88515,126809,126814,126811,75528,126812,126810,126813],"class_list":["post-302250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-developer","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-homeowners-association","tag-hotel-development","tag-madeline-garcia","tag-pmg-asset-services","tag-prime-group","tag-residential-community","tag-townhouse-community","tag-villa-portofino-east","tag-villa-portofino-east-hoa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/302251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}