Cohn v. Grand Condominium Association, Inc.
Cohn v. Grand Condominium Ass'n, Inc., 62 So. 3d 1120 (Fla. 2011)
The Florida Supreme Court (per curiam; Canady, C.J., Pariente, Lewis, Quince, Polston, Labarga, and Perry, JJ.) affirmed the Third District and held that retroactive application of Fla. Stat. §718.404(2) — which requires residential unit owners in a mixed-use condominium with at least fifty percent residential units to control a majority of the board of administration — unconstitutionally impaired contract rights as applied to The Grand's 1986 declaration. That declaration tied voting power to the Condominium Act "in effect as of the date of recording" without accepting future amendments, giving rise to "attributes of a covenant running with the land" that operated as a binding contract among the unit owners. Retroactively altering the voting allocation from equal commercial-residential representation to residential dominance violated the contracts clause in Article I, Section 10 of the Florida Constitution. Rehearing was denied on May 4, 2011.
Controlling Florida Supreme Court authority on the constitutional limits of retroactive amendments to Chapter 718 in mixed-use condominiums. Should be read alongside Jahren — Jahren establishes that an association can amend its declaration to bind pre-amendment owners, but Cohn establishes that the legislature cannot impose a substantive amendment by statute that overrides a declaration which fixed itself to a specific Condominium Act version. Highly relevant to any challenge to a Chapter 718 reform bill applied to a pre-existing mixed-use condominium.