‘It can't fall on deaf ears': Hundreds of Aventura condo owners worried about losing their homes

The 40-year recertification of Commodore Plaza has been overdue for 13 years. The city of Aventura has been issuing violations and now the 654 property owners fear an upcoming Miami-Dade County unsafe structures hearing could mean they have to leave their units.

NBC6 Investigates spoke with several condo owners at Commodore Plaza.

“It makes me cry, really,” Nora Mullen said. “At my age, I don't think that I should go through something like this.”

The property owners we spoke with said for over a decade, they’ve been through several property managers, association board members and staff, but problems persist. They point to a lack of transparency.

“It's a hassle to ask them for information. They take forever. They send you the wrong information,” said Raiza Meek, another property owner.

They said they’ve reached out to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation or DBPR’s Division of Condominiums looking for help.

Johnna Alvarez said she filed a complaint with the agency. 

“I filed a 70-page complaint with the DBPR basically, noting everything from financial issues to questionable bidding problems and everything else. And I was told, you have to litigate,” Alvarez said.

According to the DBPR annual reports, from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023, the agency received 2,383 complaints about condominiums, of which 2,307 – or about 96% – were resolved within 90 days. But when we asked the agency what “resolved” meant, NBC6 didn’t receive a response.

“I really thought that we were going to have more help from DBPR, I thought that they were going to open their bright minds and with all the money and resources that we were giving them that they were going to do more and they haven't, they haven't bothered to even hire or have an interim ombudsman, so I'm very upset about that,” said State Sen. Ileana Garcia, (R-Miami).

When NBC6 called the DBPR office, we were told the ombudsman’s position, which is the liaison between condo owners and association boards, was vacant and that a supervisor was in charge. A supervisor we learned is an analyst who makes $51,452. 

A day after we wrote the agency asking about the position State Sen. Garcia says has been vacant for over three years, the department posted the job looking to hire an attorney for the position but didn’t respond to our request for comment. 

“If we're filing complaints, if we're reaching out to you, it's because it's gotten that bad. It can't fall on deaf ears,” Alvarez said.

Neither the Commodore Plaza association's president nor its attorneys responded when we asked about the owners' complaints.

Aggravating their issues are the requirements imposed by the new condo law passed following the tragic collapse in Surfside. It requires condos to maintain reserve funds for important structural repairs and maintenance.

“The going to full reserves is going to put a lot of people on the streets,” Alvarez said.

“We signed off on this for safety reasons and it seems like we did not think of a financing mechanism and just overall consumer protections and consistency. So, their debate is, well we did this to make them safe and I said, but we can't make them homeless and that's the concern,” State Sen. Garcia said.

“The major concerns are people on fixed incomes that are saying that this is becoming onerous on them obviously,” said State Rep. Alex Rizo (R-Hialeah).

State Sen. Garcia and State Rep. Rizo said they’re looking at changes that can be made to the condo law.

“Extending the deadline to go ahead and have these reserves in place, seeing if perhaps there can be an offset for your age,” Rizo said. “We're even discussing, do we even talk about the amount of the reserve?”

Those changes won’t be discussed until the next legislative session in 2025 since a special session was not approved to deal with this issue.