Ana Rivero: Hi, and welcome to community association matters. The podcast for condominium and homeowners associations. In South Florida. As you know, Ana Sanchez Rivero your host for the podcast. And I want to thank you for joining us today. As you know, we cover a lot of topics that affect condominiums and homeowners and most recently, the Covid 19 phenomena has occurred. And obviously it's a gray situation that's affecting everyone in the world and it's having its impact on associations. So many of our clients have a lot of questions as to what to do and and what does it mean when we're going through this pandemic. We found through hurricanes, and I think most of us pretty much have a hurricane plan in place. We know what to do, but this is very new to all of us, and I think we're just learning our way around. A feeling way around and how to deal with these situations. So I asked David Iglesias, yes. from Iglesia Las Group to join me today so that we can cover some of So David, welcome to the show. How are you today? David Iglesias: Good, how are you? Thank you, Anna. Same thing. I'm working from home. I'm glad to be here, but not under these circumstances with this pandemic and everything else is going on. Ana Rivero: Yeah, this is a truly is crazy, I think. I think all of us can say that none of us have lived through this and it's definitely an extraordinary time. David Iglesias: definitely is. It's, it is for community associations. I think it is for the law. I mean, it's changing every single day and we're trying to just work our way through it. Ana Rivero: So, thank you for being here and I really appreciate that. And I want to start a little bit about, first of all, tell us about you. You've practiced condo law. David Iglesias: I do practice condo law. I've been doing this almost 14 years. I represent over a hundred associations, whether a condo or HOA, and I think one co-op, but I'm, for the most part, it's condo and HOA work. And I used to work for a large law firms, so I'm familiar with. associations on the grand scale as well as on my own here for the last five years or so, doing this type of work. Ana Rivero: Right. And I know that we worked together on a handful of communities, so, definitely look forward to continued growth for both of us. David Iglesias: Yes. Ana Rivero: So let's talk a little bit about coven. obviously we know that it's a, a virus. we know that, it spreads through contact. And, you know, it's, the projections are not looking very well and it looks like we're going to be in this for quite some time. So we, you know, today is March 30th. this is probably going to continue, at least according to president Trump, a lockdown as far as businesses and non essential businesses working from home for at least another 30 days. Right. David Iglesias: That's correct. I mean, from everything I've seen, and you know, our audience who's watching this today, they saw from the president, even the governor this morning who stated that it looks like it's going to be all the way through May 15th as to this so-called stay at home order. I think he said this morning that it's going to be for Miami Dade, for Broward, for Palm beach County, and for Monroe County. So I mean, that's at least another 45 days from now. So yeah. It is, it is considered an emergency. I think that for the last couple of weeks, lawyers been kind of going back and forth as to whether this is an emergency as it relates to associations. but, but yes, it's an emergency. It is an emergency. Ana Rivero: What does that mean exactly for associations? Do they, do they have additional powers? David Iglesias: actually, yes, associations have additional powers. and I guess when we say additional powers. I mean, it really means that some of these things like holding a board meeting, they can hold it, you know, within a shorter period of time than the 48 hours that's normally required. these emergency powers. again, there was a question Mark about them for the last two weeks because the emergency powers you'll find in the condo statute. And the HOA statute really related to hurricanes and things like that. This is really, I don't think it was written specifically for pandemics, like lists, but, it's one of those things that, you know, it now applies. And actually on Friday, the DBPR, the division of business and professional regulations issued an order specifically. I'm relating it to the Corona virus, these emergency powers and to this pandemic. Ana Rivero: And what are those powers say exactly? What did they say in that order that they issued? David Iglesias: So the issue as it relates to the order, basically the, the statute for both the condos and hos had a requirement, related to damage after a disaster. So what the order did was it said, that section doesn't really have to apply now. and, and it further gave it authority as it relates to human health services and their role in all this. So these emergency powers will give the associations the right to again, hold a board meeting maybe first. I'm in a shorter period of time, the 48 hours, let's say they want to close the pool or having too many people there and they just want to close it. Now they can post a notice and, and hold a quick board meeting in order to close the pool in an effort to, you know, keep the, as you stated, you know, the social distancing and other things like that. Ana Rivero: So now that you bring that up, there was a, I think city of Miami mayor. Also, either he issued a decree or sent out an email or an order, two condominium associations. Obviously I directed at the Brickell, but communities that are along the Brickle side of Miami and basically stated that they should shut down their common areas. Now, we had asked our associations. To shut down about two weeks ago when I think the County, I shouldn't order. Since we represent a lot of communities throughout Miami Dade County, some in Broward, different municipalities came in at different times, but as soon as Miami Dade issued one for the County. We told our clients, you should shut down your gyms. You should shut down. the ballrooms or the meeting rooms. That's hold meetings during conferences. But we did have a few clients that gave us a bit of a pushback. They didn't want to close the pool down, for example, because they felt that, you know, kids are on a school and it spring break just passed for us here in Miami day. And what impacts. Was that going to have in the community? For us it was a safety matter. So what do you tell those condominium associations? What? What is their rights under these orders to act well, David Iglesias: the associations. Generally you want to be in these kinds of situations. You want to be as conservative as possible. So if the city of Miami is issuing it to the Brickell, you know, condominiums and Miami Dade County has these orders out, I think you want to follow those. Even the communities that don't want to, they say, no, you know it's is, you know, we'll be careful. We'll have less than 10 people there. You still want to. I would say close the pools because there's always a question about liability. I'm sure in the next couple of months, unfortunately there may be, you know, people who pass away from this and some of our communities, and if they can somehow link that to the pool or claim that somehow the association was involved, there's a potential for exposure liability, whether it's true or not, whether that even applies. I think it's best for the community itself to go ahead and and close the pools. I mean for liability reasons, for safety reasons to avoid as many issues as possible. You're just, you're asking for trouble. I think if you leave these pool areas, open these gymnasiums open at this time. Now, if the association feels. Now this is the best thing for the association. Leave it open then, you know, that may be their choice. There's something called the business judgment rule that allows the associations to make these decisions in the best interests of their community. But from everything I ski right now, I think it's best to close the polls. Ana Rivero: Speaking of liability, how, how much exposure do associations have or individuals even can an individual then has Covid be held? Responsible is they don't, well, 19 for example. That's another question that board members are asking us. David Iglesias: Yeah, that's, that's, that's something I think to some extent that is a new idea in the sense that, you know what, if like you said, somebody has Covid 19 they decided not to quarantine and they would, if they maliciously or purposely try to touch somebody else or you know, get close to somebody else and that person gets infected. Is there a liability there? There may be liability and for the associations for that very reason, you want to make sure you close down these pool areas and that sort of thing. Now as to quarantining or somebody self quarantining, that's something that, the association doesn't really have the power to keep somebody in their house or their condominium. That doesn't mean that the association shouldn't, you know, call the authorities if somebody's violating, you know, a quarantine order. Maybe they should. You know, call the CDC or call their local authorities as it relates to that. But the association itself doesn't necessarily have the power to, you know, keep somebody in their house. Ana Rivero: Makes sense. Now, what if I have a resident that is sick in one of our communities and we just found out about it this morning, and what we did was we drew up a notice where we're advising the residents that someone is sick in the community that. To stay calm and we've, we had been already ramping up with our janitorial staff and the different janitorial companies that we work with, our cleaning of the common areas, obviously elevators and you know, stairwells, but the hand rails and so forth. But obvi
