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Hurricane Season – Disaster Planning Webinar Q and A

June 8, 2011
Sanjay Kurian
Disaster Preparation and Recovery, Insurance

As readers of this blog know, one June 1 we put on a webinar to begin preparations for hurricane season. The webinar is available here under the title Disaster Planning for the 2011 Hurrican Season: Are You Ready to Weather the Storm? for those who were unable to join us live. During the course of the webinar we received a number of questions we were unable to answer live due to time constraints. I have listed below some of those questions and the answers. For the sake of clarity and brevity some of the questions have been modified. As always, the below answers are not intended to be legal advice but solely informational.   Q- Can the Board of Directors of a Condominium Association forbid owners and/or guests from entering the property after a natural disaster.  A- Generally, for the Association to prohibit access to the condominium a governmental entity would have to declare the building or surrounding area to...

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Legislative Alert: New Law Impacts Bidders’ Access to Public Records and Evaluation Committee Meetings

June 7, 2011
William J. Cea
Legislation

On June 2, 2011, Governor Scott signed HB 7223 into law. This new legislation amends Florida's Public Records and Sunshine Laws, by expanding "exemptions" applicable to bids, proposals and replies to sealed competitive solicitations, and closes evaluation meetings from the public in certain instances....

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Long-Term Building Preventative Maintenance

May 30, 2011
Ryan Carpenter
Building Codes

Some counties in Florida now require buildings to be recertified when they reach a certain age and require problems discovered during the recertification inspection to be repaired in very short periods of time. Whether your building is subject to such a recertification program or not, it is never too early to implement a long-term preventative maintenance plan for your building to avoid being caught by surprise with costly repairs....

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LIVE WEBINAR

May 19, 2011
Lee Weintraub
Disaster Preparation and Recovery

Disaster Planning for the 2011 Hurricane Season - Are You Ready to Weather the Storm? Wednesday, June 1, 2011 10:00 AM– 11:00 AM EDT (9:00 AM – 10:00 PM CDT) Hurricane Season is officially here. While we have had a couple of years in Florida that have perhaps lulled us into a certain complacency, the prediction in 2011 is for nine hurricanes in the Atlantic. Are you ready to weather the storm? Join Bill Strop, who will moderate this webinar, and Rob Rubin and Sanjay Kurian, to learn about recent cases and experiences resulting from recent disasters that will affect how you prepare yourself and your community before the storms hit. William Strop, Esq. Fort Lauderdale Sanjay Kurian, Esq. Fort Myers Robert I. Rubin Esq. West Palm Beach . Click here to register and you will receive a confirmation email with information on how to participate ...

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Supreme Court accepts review of Lakeview Reserve v. Maronda Homes

May 14, 2011
Sanjay Kurian
Cases

In the recent case of Lakeview Reserve Homeowners v. Maronda Homes, 48 So. 3d 902 (Fla. 5th DCA 2010), Florida's 5th District Court of Appeal found that a homeowner's association had a claim for breach of common law implied warranties of fitness and merchantability against a builder/developer for defects in the roadways, drainage systems, retention ponds and underground pipes.  The Fifth District found that these items immediately supported the homes by making them "habitable, and so, fit for its intended purpose."  In reaching this decision, the Fifth District certified conflict with the Fourth District's 1985 opinion of Port Sewall Harbor & Tennis Club Owners, Association, Inc. v. First Federal Savings and Loan Association of Martin County, 463 So. 2d 530 (Fla. 4th DCA 1985).  The Port Sewall case relied on the Florida Supreme Court's prior decision in Conklin v. Hurley, 428 So. 2d 654 (Fla. 1983), which the Fifth District distinguished. In light of the conflict between the appellate districts, the Florida Supreme Court has...

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Construction Contracting for the Owner – Scope of Work

May 13, 2011
Sanjay Kurian
Contracts

It is an easy enough question, what is the scope of your project? For example it may be simply to reroof the building. However, what materials should be used, what will be done with damaged plywood decking, does the existing roof need to be pulled off or can it be roofed over? These are all basic questions that need to be addressed from what appeared to be a simple question. As the owner, the scope is very important for purposes of knowing what your expectations are and that the contractor understands those expectations.  The scope will also impact the price. In our reroof example, what is the contractor doing with the air conditioner stands on the flat roof? Are they being removed and put back, or the being removed and new ones put in? Can the work be done with the air conditioning units in place?  Whether a reroof or any construction work...

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Construction Contracting for the Owner: The Owner – Contractor Relationship

April 17, 2011
Sanjay Kurian
Contracts

   In choosing a Contractor, often the Owner chooses a Contractor through a bidding process. Sometimes the Owner engages a Contractor on their own.  However the Contractor is contracted it is important to spell out the details of the terms. Courts will not protect an Owner from a bad deal that the Owner has voluntarily entered. This means that those multimillion dollar one page contracts floating around (I have seen a number of them over the years) will be enforced by a court if the Owner does not live up to the terms, no matter how one sided. In the bidding process, the Owner, with the help of the Design Professional, sends out a bid packet to various contractors and invites them to bid on the project.  The Owner and Design Professional then evaluate the bids and review the responsiveness of the bid, the responsibleness of the bids (is the bidder lowballing now in hopes of issuing...

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