FDR was certainly not a fan of term limits.  What about Obama and Romney?  One thing that is clear is that since 2008, the State of Florida has been a fan of term limits, at least for directors of condominiums.

In 2007 and prior, Florida Statute 718.112(2)(d) read:  “If there is no provision in the bylaws for terms of the members of the board, the terms of all members of the board shall expire upon the election of their successors at the annual meeting.”  This essentially meant that so long as your bylaws outlined some sort of term limits, whether they be 12 months or 12 years, those would be the limits imposed on the directors of your condominium association.

However, an amendment to this statute was passed in 2008 which changed it to read:  “Except in a timeshare condominium, or if the staggered term of a board member does not expire until a later annual meeting, or if all members’ terms would otherwise expire but there are no candidates, the terms of all board members expire at the annual meeting, and such members may stand for reelection unless prohibited by the bylaws.”  Notice that the key language from the first sentence of the 2007 version that allowed a condominium association to defer to the term limits in its own bylaws was removed.  The effect is that now, unless your association has staggered terms, directors’ board membership always expires at the annual meeting, effectively limiting all terms to 1 year regardless of what your bylaws might otherwise say!

Some people may love this change.  Some people may hate it.  If a dispute does develop as to whether your association is subject to the amended 2008 version of this statute, an analysis of your governing documents may be helpful.  For example, and as further discussed in the post titled “The Magic Words”, many condominium associations’ governing documents contain language stating that they are governed by the Condominium Act “as amended from time to time”.  Although such documents may predate 2008, and could be 20, 30 or even 40 years old, the fact that they contain these “magic words” means that they are subject to the most current version of the Condominium Act.

Alternatively, for condominium association documents that state that they are simply governed by the Condominium Act or governed by the Condominium Act as it exists at the time the documents were recorded, it may be argued that only those amendments to the Condominium Act that predate the recording of the governing documents are applicable to that particular association.  So, if your condominium association has bylaws permitting say 4 year terms for directors and those bylaws were originally recorded in 2007 or prior and your governing documents nowhere state the magic “as amended from time to time” language, you could argue that the 4 year term for directors still apply.

Daniel Wasserstein

E-mail: danw@wassersteinpa.com

561-288-3999