Miami Rep. carves out Epic, Carillon from law favoring developers in condo-hotel disputes
A Miami lawmaker is proposing to carve out two hotel-condominiums in South Florida from a law that gives developers more control over the building, and the upper hand in lawsuits with associations that govern the residential portion of the property.
Rep. Vicki Lopez said the carve-out was a compromise with the association from the luxury Miami Epic Residences and Hotel, which has been in a lawsuit with the property’s hotelier regarding alleged overcharges for shared facilities. The project is in her district.
“They would like a total repeal of the statute, but that impacts other hotel-condos that don’t have the problem that they had,” Lopez said after her bill unanimously passed its first committee Tuesday. “And, so I said, okay, look, if we can’t do a total repeal, then let’s carve you out.”
Lopez said she made the decision because the association deserves to have their “pretty nasty lawsuit” with the hotel and the owner of the building play out.
Last year, Lopez sent a niche part of the condominium industry into upheaval when she sponsored a change in the law that gave developers more control over shared facilities in luxury high rises like Hotel Carillon on Miami Beach. Because it applied retroactively, the new law that went into effect last summer gave developers new leverage in a number of lawsuits over who controlled these common spaces in mixed-use condominium buildings. On Tuesday, Lopez decided to carve out associations already in litigation over the shared facilities, at least one of which has been threatening to sue over the law’s constitutionality ever since the governor signed the bill, saying they deserved to proceed unhindered.
The amendment added to Lopez’s bill, HB 913, in committee Tuesday applies to all associations in mixed-use buildings that are already legally challenging a developer’s control over shared facilities like pools, recreation centers and parking garages. But the law would still apply to any association in a building controlled by a hotel that hasn’t contested that arrangement. A Senate companion bill, by contrast, applies the law only to condos in mixed-use buildings created after July 1, 2025, a year after the law giving developers more control over shared facilities went into effect.
The current law, passed last year to “clarify” the ownership of these facilities, is retroactive and has threatened to upend lawsuits over shared facilities in South Florida including Epic, Carillon and Gallery One Hotel in Fort Lauderdale. Under Lopez’s bill, these court cases would proceed under the law prior to the update she sponsored in 2024 giving the upper hand to developers.
Mark Grant, a real estate attorney and consultant for Hotel Carillon whose idea it was to create the specific retroactive provision in the bill that passed the Legislature last year, wrote to the Herald/Times in an email that he was against Lopez’s change to the bill carving out these projects from the law.
“There is no reason why Carillon (and Epic) should be treated differently than all other condo hotel projects,” Grant wrote. “This amendment was clearly the work of the two attorneys that are representing the plaintiffs in those cases just to help their clients.”
Grant and others sought to “clarify” the law after, they said, the lawsuits dampened a booming real estate market around mixed use living as retirees increasingly are attracted to cities.
He added: “This amendment needs to be stopped.”
Stevan Pardo, who represents the associations in both cases, said in response that Grant should know the 2024 “law is illegal.”
Pardo is unsatisfied with the amendment because it precludes other associations from challenging in the future developers and other third parties who seek to control everything in a condominium tower except for the units themselves. He said this was a blatant misreading of the 1963 Condominium Act, which gave ownership of common elements to associations. (Developers disagree that shared facilities are in fact common elements, which is the central tension to the cases.)
“It’s not going to stop us,” Pardo said, adding that his clients were going to sue over what they see as the unconstitutionality of the law. “You can change the law, but you can only apply it going forward.”
Pardo and his clients instead support Sen. Jenifer Bradley’s bill, SB 1742, which would apply the law only to condominium associations declared after July 1, 2025, a year after the law went into effect.
“The Senate gets it and Representative Lopez doesn’t,” Pardo said.