With the rise of vacation rental websites such as Airbnb and VRBO, many condominium association leaders wonder what they can do to limit, or prohibit, short-term rentals in their building. The answer is straight forward, but there is a catch. The association must amend its condominium documents to prohibit short-term rentals.
This issue was the subject of a Florida Supreme Court case called Woodside Vill. Condo. Ass’n v. Jahren, 806 So.2d 452, 456 (Fla.2002). In Woodside, the condominium association membership voted to amend the declaration of condominium to restrict leasing of units to not more than nine months during any twelve-month period. Mr. Jahren sued the association asserting that the amendment should be invalid, as to him, because he purchased the unit prior to the amendment and relied on the language of the then-existing declaration of condominium for that purchase. The Florida Supreme Court disagreed with Mr. Jahren. The Court noted that Mr. Jahren was on constructive notice of the fact that the declaration could be amended when he purchased his unit because the declaration had an amendatory clause and went on to uphold the amendment as valid and enforceable.
In reaction to Woodside, the following year the Condominium Act was amended to add section 718.110(13), Florida Statutes, which now states:
(13) An amendment prohibiting unit owners from renting their units or altering the duration of the rental term or specifying or limiting the number of times unit owners are entitled to rent their units during a specified period applies only to unit owners who consent to the amendment and unit owners who acquire title to their units after the effective date of that amendment.
The statutory clause sets up a “grandfathering” system where the amended restriction will apply immediately upon recordation to all owners who voted for the amendment, and as to any owner who did not vote or voted against the amendment, their units are “grandfathered” with respect to the new rental restriction until the unit has a new owner.
The foregoing statute sets the grandfathering floor, but there are many different ways to structure an amendment which can create alternative grandfathering schemes which are sometimes necessary for political reasons to get the amendment to pass. If you are interested in discussing this matter in more depth, you should contact your association’s attorney.
