Scrutiny grows on condo board meetings, disputes at collapsed building in Surfside

A year after a 2018 engineering report showed the Champlain Towers South condo was in dire need of extensive structural work, squabbling about what to do next led to board resignations, inactivity and confusion that delayed repairs. The cost, which at the time would have been an estimated $9 million, skyrocketed over the next few years.

In an internal letter obtained by The Washington Post dated Sept. 4, 2019, Champlain Towers South Condo Association president Annette Goldstein announced she was quitting as the board’s president, citing frustration over the inability to proceed with the work. Five other members of the seven-person board quit later that fall.

“We work for months to go in one direction and at the very last minute objections are raised that should have been discussed earlier and resolved right in the beginning,” Goldstein wrote in a letter sent to all 135 unit owners.

“This pattern has repeated itself over and over, ego battles, undermining the roles of fellow board members, circulation of gossip and untruths,” Goldstein wrote. “I am not presenting a very pretty picture of the functioning of our board and many before us, but it describes a board that works very hard but cannot for the reasons above accomplish the goals that we set out to accomplish.”

Disputes and delays of expensive repairs and assessments aren’t uncommon in Florida’s condominium associations. But now as lawsuits mount over the catastrophic partial collapse of the 12-story building in Surfside, the deliberations and disputes of this particular board have come under intense scrutiny.

Lawyers representing the five condo owners in the building who have sued the association thus far for negligence are seeking to review minutes of those meetings., which are not publicly available They argue those records will detail exactly how the association responded to the 2018 report and whether board members should have pressed for projects to begin more quickly.

Postponing decisions on critical work because of internal squabbling or push-back from residents isn’t a good excuse for boards with legal obligations to maintain a building, said Brad Sohn, the attorney representing Champlain Towers South resident Manuel Drezner.

“I don’t think it’s surprising that instead of contributing to the rescue efforts, the board hired a crisis firm from Washington, D.C., to represent them,” Sohn said. “They’re out there blaming the victims.”

On Thursday, the condo board hired a public relations firm to assist them with media relations.

Goldstein later rejoined the board and is listed as director in its 2021 roster. The Herald was unable to reach any of the association’s current members. At least three board members are reported missing after the collapse.

Donna DiMaggio Berger, an attorney with the law firm Becker representing the association, did not reply to a request for comment for this story from the Herald. But Berger had previously stated in a social media post that the 2018 report “was posted on the association web site as were all the bids that were being obtained for the owners to see.” The board secured a line of credit to pay for the repairs, she said, and the board passed a special assessment.

According to NPR, the association sent residents of the building a letter in April warning them of “significant deterioration” in the building and a repair bill of $16.2 million, explaining the damage first noted in the 2018 report had worsened. The bill would be paid via an assessment on the condo owners.

That bill would include the work necessary for the building to obtain its 40-year recertification, a process that was underway when the tower collapsed.

Common disputes

For many condo residents in South Florida, the debate in Champlain Towers South over how to handle expensive repairs will strike a familiar chord.

Attorney David Winker said when the condo he owns in a six-unit apartment building on South Beach went through its 40-year recertification, the initial estimate was $700,000.

“It’s a $250,000 condo,” he said. “If that bill was accurate, I was just going to turn my keys into the bank. Fortunately the total cost ended up being a tenth of that estimate. But what normally happens is that no one does the maintenance and then there’s an emergency and they tell the owners they need to pay $20,000 each, and they say no. There’s an institutional pressure to keep assessments down. That’s how we end up with disasters like this one.“

On Thursday at a first court hearing on the initial handful of lawsuits, Robert J. McKee, an attorney representing condo owner Steve Rosenthal, was asked by Judge Michael Hanzman to write an order for the preservation of all evidence related to the building.

Aside from a condo board meeting held Nov. 15, 2018, to discuss possible assessments in advance of the building’s 40-year recertification, none of the minutes from the other meetings have been released to the public.

Lawyers say the records exist but are accessible only to certain unit owners via an online portal, though some have been provided to media outlets, including the Washington Post and NPR.

“A condo association is a political entity that has a duty to do proper maintenance and management,” McKee said. “A board must cut through foot-dragging on something like this. Unit owners must comply with special assessments, and those who don’t can be foreclosed on. It’s not a happy job to have, especially after having failed to keep up with maintenance over several years. But when you buy a condo, you contract to be a member of the association.”

Still, experts say it can be difficult to get all condo owners in one building to agree on an assessment, even in smaller projects.