Fellow Residents
I am writing to update you on 2 things. The first is on what is happening with the latest petition we submitted to the HOA, and the second is the results of the recent survey we sent out to you. The survey results are at the end of this email. I also sent you this message by email. If you did not receive the email version, it means I do not have a valid email address for you. Please send me one.
A group of Eastpointe residents (this is you) who are concerned about decisions made affecting the direction of our community, recently submitted a legal petition to the Eastpointe HOA Board addressing grievances that we have with the approval process of the recent Board only approved Bi-Party Agreement between the ECC and the HOA. The HOA Board President rejected and ignored our legal petition. He has stated that this is a frivolous action by a few disgruntled residents. This is a complete misrepresentation of who we are and our intent.
We are a large group of over 200+ Eastpointe property owners. Recently, as required by Florida law and the Eastpointe Governing Documents, we submitted a legal petition to the HOA Board to address several grievances. The intent of the petition was to force a special meeting of the Eastpointe members (residents) to vote on 7 modifications of the governing documents, addressing our grievances, and to recall the HOA President Ira Berger. The HOA President and a select few of the HOA Board ignored our legal petition. We wanted to address our grievances through the proper legal channels by petitioning the HOA Board and then having the community vote on our proposed modifications. Consequently, we are left with little alternative but to legally challenge the HOA Board for failure to act.
We're fighting a legal battle against the Eastpointe HOA to address serious grievances and protect our rights as residents, and every donation on our Go Fund Me page makes a huge impact on our efforts. Could you please click the link below to support our cause or share it with others? Thanks so much for considering this!
Who are we: We come from all the villages / POAs and consist of all ECC member categories. Most are married, but we have single property owners and widows in our group. We are mostly senior and retired, but we also have many younger and working residents in our group.
Petition Resident Demographics - 205 property owners
- Lake Village - 65
- East Village - 26
- West Village - 2
- South Village - 22
- Eastlakes POA - 62
- Briarwood Condos - 28
ECC Member demographics
- Full Golf Member - 16.28%
- Resident Social Member - 76.74%
- Sport Gol Member - 1.16%
- Grandfathered Resident - 5.81%
Why are we taken action: We have come together because we believe the process used to approve the 2 previous Bi-Party Agreements was legally flawed. We feel misled by and disillusioned with several of our community leaders and many of our members are being subjected to intimidation tactics to silence residents from exercising their rights to petition for redress of grievances before the HOA.
We have sought out and received legal counsel and they have advised us that the process used by the HOA and ECC to negotiate and approve the last Bi-Party Agreement was significantly flawed, improperly noticed, was not done with the voting consent of the members, violated several state laws, and had grotesque conflicts of interest. Our lawyers detailed these issues in a Cease-and-Desist letter to both the ECC and HOA on May 29, 2024. It is our legal counsel’s strong opinion that the passage of the Bi-Party Agreement itself is invalid and voidable under Florida law.
Additionally, after receiving and reviewing a great deal of evidence provided by residents, including emails from the parties involved, our lawyers believe there is compelling evidence that the conduct of several HOA and ECC Board members and key committee leads constitute clear departures from their duties to act within the limits of their authority under statute and by-laws, have violated several statutes including Fl St 720.3033 and 720.3065 Fraudulent voting activities, among others, and constitute breaches of contractual and fiduciary duties owed to residents of Eastpointe. In our lawyer’s opinion, these actions stray into the territory of libel and other conduct that is proscribed and actionable under Florida law.
As discussed in the Cease-and-Desist letter in May 2024 to both boards, the actions of the individual board members involved in this grievance process subject them to personal civil liability under Fla. Stat.§ 617.0834, as they were committed in bad faith and with malicious purpose. The Florida legislature considers these offenses to homeowners so severe that in the recent update to Fl ST 720, approved and in effect as of 1 July 2024, new felony criminal penalties were instituted for violations of the statutes discussed in the Cease & Desist letter. Additionally, as of 1 July 2024, being charged with any criminal act under the Fl ST 720 requires immediate removal from the Board.
To ensure this never happens again, we want 7 reasonable modifications to our governing documents. These modifications:
· Clarify wording to be consistent with State Law,
· Eliminate ambiguities in the documents such that the HOA Board may not pass special assessments, modify governing documents, or Bi-Party agreements without 14 days notices and membership approval,
· Adds language that conforms to state Statutes for conflicts of interest, and
· Clarifies term limits for Directors.
Ironically, one modification amends our By Laws to be consistent with Fl St 720.303 defining procedure for recall of a HOA Board Officer / Director. This includes verbiage included in several Fl statutes defining the actions that must be taken once a recall petition is received by the HOA Board. This is necessary to prevent a Director under recall from using HOA funds, resources, or access to HOA legal resources, to prevent his/her recall by the residents.
This is exactly what is happening now with the current HOA President ignoring a legal petition by the residents for his recall. Consequently, we are left with little alternative but to legally challenge the HOA Board for failure to act.
These legal actions could easily be avoided if the HOA Board would simply allow the residents/ members to vote, as requested via our petition. Of Note, our By-laws allow for special meetings of members to be called by a vote by the majority of the Board and/or by the HOA Secretary, if requested in writing by one-third (3) of the Board. Do we not have at least 3 HOA Board members who will honor the request of over 200 property owners?
Please donate to our G0-Fund- Me- Page. Please contact the HOA and your village / POA Board members and tell them to “LET THE RESIDENTS VOTE”. Write to the HOA here.
'Eastpointe HOA' eastpointehoafl@gmail.com
Petition results:
Here are the results of our recent survey. I sent the survey to 164 of the residents on our petition list. I had 88 responses, better than 50% of respondents took the survey. That is a statistically significant response rate. Here are the results . click on the link below and go to the Tab "Survey Results"
https://eastpointerealinfo.com