Hialeah's mayor signed an executive order today creating a new homeowners association task force, meant to help residents dealing with alleged malfeasance from HOA boards.
Mayor Bryan Calvo said at a press conference outside city hall Wednesday that Hialeah has 26,055 condominiums within its borders. He said the city has received hundreds of complaints from residents, many of them elderly, that their HOA boards have misused member fees and not performed necessary maintenance work. Calvo presented images of condo buildings in Hialeah with construction work left unfinished and a dilapidated parking garage with exposed rebar.
" Many of these buildings — the passage of time has definitely taken its toll on them. They're in dire straits and they need all the assistance that can be provided," Calvo said. " There are issues of malfeasance and misfeasance. You have property managers that sometimes are hired out, and they don't care about the property and they're just there to line their pockets."
READ MORE: The high cost of high-rise condo living in South Florida
In response, Hialeah will now form a task force that will educate residents about their rights with regards to HOAs, and connect condo owners and renters with the Florida state agency that's meant to police HOA boards: the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR). The task force will be comprised of city employees. Calvo said task force members will not be paid any additional dollars outside of their existing salaries.
Starting Monday, March 16, the city will host an event where residents can come in person and meet with DBPR personnel to issue complaints and request investigations of their HOAs directly. The first event will be held at the Milander Center at 5 p.m. The city will also work with DBPR to better connect residents with complaints to the appropriate investigators.
A condo resident who identified himself only as Anthony spoke at the press conference and said condominiums in Hialeah must have further scrutiny.
"We live in a condominium where the association is a disaster, and we've continued paying them. I'm glad the city is finally doing something," he said.
Condominium associations have come under heavy scrutiny in Florida over the last five years following the collapse of the Champlain Towers in Surfside in 2021. Following the condo collapse, Florida passed new safety laws that required more stringent inspections of condo buildings and imposed tighter restrictions on HOA boards. These laws resulted in much higher costs for condo owners and renters as HOA boards impose assessment fees on residents.
