My name is Donald McLoughlin I live in Unit 900 and cabana 14 when my family and I are in Florida. My units have been in our family since the building went condo; I believe making me the longest continual owner in the building. I have been through it all. All along I have not wanted to be involved with another court case so I turned a blind eye to the chicanery of the Board for years.
A couple of things pushed me over the edge to join dissatisfied owners in a lawsuit against the board:
After Wilma, when the roof blew off, my plaster walls had washed off of the beams, the walls behind my newly installed kitchen cabinets had washed away as well. The patio Door had shattered. When I inquired to a Board member, about money to repair the hurricane damaged walls, it was explained to me that there wasn’t any.
When it came time to install new hurricane windows I was for it. I did ask a good friend who is a window distributor in NY to make sure I was not being robbed. He had priced out new Pella Hurricane windows for my unit @ 27 k installed. The windows that were being offered by the Board were not a name anyone in the business had heard of, were being offered for 44k installed. Something seemed amiss…
When I was visiting I noticed the new balcony around the Penthouse, I inquired to an architect I played golf with about it, and asked him if a certificate of occupancy had been filed, and he could not find it.
I could not have company over to visit without them being hassled for parking money.
My car was towed {the valets had the keys} from the parking lot out front to across the street to accommodate a party being thrown by a Board member.
The new Tiki bar has encroached on our common area, the new reconfiguration of the patio, removed common area adjacent to my cabana, and the new tiki bar, table setup ,and overstocking of what little open space there was of open area left has diminished the view form my cabana.
My neighbors who own cabana’s , can not use them because our cabana area has been turned into a bar back setup, with garbage carts, garbage, broken furniture, shopping carts used to haul liquor and bar supplies.
How much can a guy handle?
After I was involved in the law suit I found out that: Millions had been paid to ocean manor for hurricane Wilma Damage.
Checks had been written to contractors to cover the cost of renovating Board Members properties.
Checks for hundreds of thousands of dollars had been written to individual Board members {Frank, Carolyn ect..}.
Two hundred thousand of “hurricane Wilma” money was transferred to a different bank account and was liquidated through a series of over the counter cash withdrawals.
The list grows on and on, I do not see things getting better, only worse.
I can not attach pdf files to the blog. I would be happy to send them to other homeowners. Please send me an email requesting them and I would be happy to send you a copy of our bench briefs with copies of exhibits. If the Blog team could figure out a way to print them out it would be helpful.
I invite any Board member to respond.
My email address is djm.gfg@gmail.com
Posted by Donald J McLaughlin
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DONNY IS RIGHT, WE CAN'T ENJOY OUR CABANAS NOW BECAUSE OF THE TIKI BAR, THIS IS ABSURD! THIS MATTER HAS TO BE TAKEN CARE OF EVERYTHING HAS TO BE TAKEN CARE OF ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
ReplyDeleteThank you Donald for enlightening those of us who had little or no idea how serious this situation is. Unit owners need to unite!
ReplyDeleteHopefully all owners will be present tonight at the board meeting to voice their complaints and demands
ReplyDeleteDon is absolutely correct. What has happened to this building as a result of the irresponsible operation of the hotel and the Tiki bar over the last several years is inexcusable. The hotel operator has hijacked the Board and runs roughshod over the rights of the rest of the condominium owners.
ReplyDeleteThe hotel has developed a well deserved reputation as undesirable place to stay. The beach and pool have been converted to public access because the only thing the hotel operator wants to restrict is people bringing food or beverages. I have witnessed large numbers of people that are not owners and are not even hotel guests that use our property as a public beach and preclude its use by owners. They park their cars in our parking lot and come in our building unchallenged. They spend the day at the beach and the pool using our property because the Tiki bar can sell them food and drinks while the owners are forced to compete for a place to park and a beach chair. The crowds are unruly and are frequently served alcohol when they are drunk The hotel operator promotes this because these intruders are profitable for him. The hotel operator makes money while the condominium owners receive nothing except rude treatment from the intruders and the hotel employees as well as the employees we pay. How long are we going to put up with this??
Access to the beach through our building should be restricted to owners and legitimate guests. If the Tiki bar wants to have trade other than the owners and guests the operator has an obligation to control the people he admits to our property. They should not be provided access to use our pool and our patio and our beach chairs--use should be restricted to the Tiki bar. This is a private condominium and the amenities are paid for by the owners. It is not a public beach.
I am an absentee owner. It would be appreciated if someone who attends the meeting starts a new thread telling us what transpired at tonight's meeting.
ReplyDeleteSOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT.... I did an quick count of individual residential units owners vs. units owned by Mr. Telerico (personal and corp.) and Ms. Chen. My calculation is that there are approximately 134 privately owned units out of the approx. 194 according to the tax rolls. This does not include commerical units and cabanas. Us "little guys" are the majority. The majority needs to have their say in how our building is run.
ReplyDeleteApproximately $1,9 million dollars was paid and shown to the court with the complete audit. As the three checks came in to add up to the 1.9 million over a several month period. The Bank manager at Sun Trust asked us to open separate accounts so they could get the credit for these new account.
ReplyDeleteSince this bank had always been good to the OM we did what they asked. Our Auditors asked us not to do this again because it made their job more difficult but ever dollar was accounted for.
As far as cash taken out of the bank over the counter. It cannot be done. The new account money was transfered to the operating accounts to pay for fixing the building after Wilma. This was also shown in court. No cash EVER left the bank to individuals. And this was proven.
The penthouse which sustained the most damage was repaired and replaced by the individual owners at their cost. Then over a year later the insurance company reimbursed them for $1.034 million which was the penthouse insurance money and paid for the owners of the penthouses. They lost money and over one year of rental including the deductable.
The OM had a deductable of $700,000.00 so, the money received was not enough to pay for all the damages.
I was thinking of putting in an offer on a condo in this building but it sounds to me that the majority of the owners need to stand up to Frank the bully jeff from Georgia
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