Are your governing documents nuisance provisions strong enough?

Many older, or Developer drafted, community governing documents have weak or lack any nuisance provisions.  This prevents many Condominium and Homeowners’ Associations from being able to legally go after obnoxious residents for their bad behavior.

 We are seeing many more people escaping from lock downs up north this Season to enjoy our Florida sunshine and Florida freedom. Many of these coming are not owners of condominium units or homes here but are rather renters or guests of owners.

Many of these short term visitors do not have the same respect for their neighbors and the property that most owners do as they are not invested in the community.  As a result, some display bad behavior such as yelling and cursing at other residents, playing music loudly, or leaving personal property such as beach chairs or bikes all over the common areas.

Without good nuisance language in your Declaration of Condominium or Declaration of Covenants, it can be difficult or not impossible to legally get these offenders in line.

Here is an example of what we consider good “enforceable” nuisance language:  No owner shall use his unit or the common elements or permit his unit or the common elements to be used, in any manner which constitutes or causes an unreasonable amount of annoyance or nuisance to the occupant of another unit, or which would not be consistent with the maintenance of the highest standards for a first class residential condominium, nor permit the premises to be used in a disorderly or unlawful way.  The use of each unit and the common elements shall be consistent with existing laws and the condominium documents, and occupants shall at all times conduct themselves in a peaceful and orderly manner.  No, owner, tenant or guest may disturb any other owner or resident with the use of profane, obscene, threatening or abusive comments either orally or in writing or by their conduct on the property that is abusive or threatening.

With this type language, an Association can send violation letters to the nuisance offender and if they don’t start acting civil and quit annoying other residents after notice, the Association can then bring legal action against them.  It can first request pre-suit mediation or arbitration and if that does not work, then sue the offender in local court requesting the court order an injunction against the offender requiring them to quit being a nuisance in the community. The Association can also request that the court award prevailing party attorney’s fees to it.  That means if the Association prevails, the offender may have to pay the Association’s attorney’s fees in addition to any of his or hers own attorney’s fees.

If the offender continues to create a nuisance or starts new nuisances after the injunction order, then the court could find the person in contempt of court.  In that case, the court would usually order the offender to pay a fine.  If that does not stop the violations, the court could ultimately send the offender to jail as a penalty.

  The bad acting visitors need to understand that such bad behavior will not be tolerated in your community.  Sometimes an example needs to be made to prevent such behavior in other visitors from happening.  The bad actors behavior can get very costly for them.

You should check you governing documents sometime to make sure you have nuisance provisions that can be enforced.  If not, you should seriously consider amending the documents so that you can stop bad resident behaviors.  Otherwise, these types may yell freedom of speech, thumb their nose at you, and continue to wreak havoc around your community.