Before Surfside, the Becker law firm fought condo safety proposals - South Florida Sun Sentinel

For decades, the law firm representing the collapsed Champlain Towers South has waged a successful lobbying campaign against condominium safety measures. Now, the Becker firm is at the center of discussions about how to make condos safer.

The irony is not lost on those who’ve observed the 48-year history of the Fort Lauderdale firm formerly known as Becker & Poliakoff.

“A lot of stuff I tried to propose, the No. 1 group that would fight me was Becker & Poliakoff,” said former state Rep. Julio Robaina, R-Miami, who focused on condo legal reforms when he served in the Legislature. “That was my nemesis.”

The firm is a force in Tallahassee politics and in city halls and condo towers across the state. Its founders are credited with writing much of the law that underpins condo living in Florida, and its principals have spent decades constructing a hands-off regulatory framework that empowers associations to steer their own fate.

The firm has marshalled its condo clientele to deliver torrents of “grassroots” attacks on legislation that could have made condos safer.

Closer to home, its attorneys have aggressively pursued unit owners who challenge the boards Becker represents, in one case demanding reimbursement for $120,000 in legal fees from a Boca Raton condo owner who sued his association over a $1,300 repair bill.

Another condo owner wrote to his state senator to complain about the firm’s bullying tactics, saying Becker attorney Robert Rubin “states that there is no way that I will ever win this case because he will litigate to eternity (‘if he dies there will be plenty more at Becker & Poliakoff’) and Becker and Poliakoff will wear me down mentally and financially or both.”

As elected officials across the state debate potentially costly new regulations to make condos safer, Becker is sure to exert influence. The firm says it represents more than 4,000 condo buildings in Florida. It has lobbying agreements with city and county governments throughout the state. One of its attorneys, Joseph Adams, sits on the Florida Bar’s Real Property, Probate and Trust Law task force advising the governor and Legislature on what should be done to prevent another condo collapse.

“They’re the ocean liner among [homeowner association] and condo attorneys. They’re not the little tugboat,” said attorney Fred O’Neal, an attorney in Windermere in central Florida who represents homeowners against associations. “In Tallahassee, the Legislature obviously bends to the will of the best organized, loudest voices.”

Becker attorney Ken Direktor currently serves as the Champlain’s attorney. When it collapsed, the building’s registered agent in state records was a Becker attorney, Miami Beach Commissioner Michael Gongora.

According to records released by the town of Surfside, Becker attorneys have represented the Champlain Towers SouthCondominium, on and off, for over 30 years, including two instances when the condo underwent significant renovations.

With political savvy and a legion of clients, the firm can orchestrate a deluge of condo emails, calls and letters to legislators — and occasionally a swarm of condo dwellers spilling out of a chartered plane or bus in Tallahassee in matching T-shirts.

Prompted by the firm, retirees have asked legislators for mercy from new laws that might increase condo fees, like a requirement to add fire sprinklers. Former legislators said condo residents didn’t necessarily know what the legislation was about — just that it might cost them something.

“Their philosophy has been more of a ‘no mandates; allow these associations to make their own decisions,’ " said Travis Moore, a former Becker attorney and now head of the Community Associations Institute, an association-industry lobbying group. “And in some regards, that has fit in really nicely with an administration and a Legislature that feels that way about virtually everything.”

When the Champlain fell, it needed millions of dollars of work, but hadn’t saved up the money. That’s because Florida condos today can leave reserve funds empty with a majority vote of owners present at a meeting. Fort Lauderdale’s Jim Scott, a Republican senator, pushed the bill that reduced the vote needed from two-thirds to a majority in 1980, archived state records show.

Subsequent legislative efforts to make it harder for condos to waive reserve requirements, or to require more money to be saved in reserve accounts, failed.

As dust from the rubble of Surfside still hung in the air, Becker’s chief condo lobbyist, Donna DiMaggio Berger, appeared on national TV, suggesting condos like the Champlain should have built up stronger reserves.

“In far too many communities,” she told CNN’s Chris Cuomo, “we do have members voting to waive reserves each year.”

“A prominent law firm located in Broward that does a lot of condominium work, they organized a bus of condo leaders and sent tens of thousands of letters to the Legislature saying, ‘Don’t do it, it’s too expensive to retrofit,’” Geller said in a recent condo safety hearing. “So we moved it back three or four years — until the towering inferno occurs.”

The firm found powerful allies in Broward’s Republican legislators and one of them, Fort Lauderdale’s Ellyn Bogdanoff, now works for Becker as a lawyer-lobbyist.

Donna Berger and Bogdanoff have bragged in online postings and press releases celebrating their “win for condo associations.” Their most recent victory came in 2019, when Florida passed legislation delaying sprinkler compliance until 2024.

Fort Lauderdale Republican Rep. George Moraitis, who sponsored one of the delay bills, said tower fires are rare and adding sprinklers expensive. He said Becker had earned its influence in Tallahassee, and had “certainly financially supported me and others.”

Led by Berger, the Becker condo lobby also stepped into battle against a bill that would have required, among other things, structural inspections for condos every five years.

The bill, proposed by then-Sen. Rene Garcia, now a Miami-Dade County commissioner, contained a litany of things the firm opposed, including term limits for condo board members, and a law making it illegal for condo boards to “abuse” unit owners.

The bill said: “Every 5 years the board of administration shall have the condominium buildings inspected by a professional engineer or professional architect registered in the state for the purpose of determining that the building is structurally and electrically safe.” It failed.

“That bill never even moved, there was no support from the House, and it wasn’t just Becker & Poliakoff, but other law firms, saying there was an undue burden financially on the associations,” Robaina said.

Pete Dunbar, an influential longtime lobbyist for the Florida Bar and an adjunct professor at Florida State University College of Law, said the Becker firm is by no means alone in advancing condo issues, but is a respected member of the condo “gaggle’' in the state Capitol.

Florida’s first condo ombudsman, Dr. Virgil Rizzo, supported many of the provisions that were anathema to Becker: term limits on condo board members, mandatory safety inspections of condo buildings, mandatory education for board members, and a law to make it illegal for board members to abuse condo owners, a 2006 Sun Sentinel story recounted. Becker “strongly opposed” his appointment, the Sun Sentinel reported, and CALL was “a constant critic of the ombudsman.”

“Most elections, we’d run into a law firm that didn’t do right by the membership but tried to do right by the board,” Lucier said. “A large percentage were Becker & Poliakoff’s attorneys. I don’t want to disparage one law firm over another, but it was the fact.”

Since 2017, Becker lobbyists appeared at least 560 times in the Florida House of Representatives alone, the Sun Sentinel found. Between the state and federal levels, their clients include Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties, the Broward Sheriff’s Office, and 21 cities, towns and villages in Florida, including Miami, Hollywood, and Pompano Beach.

Gongora is a Miami Beach elected official and has been at the center of at least 12 complaints, investigations and inquiries lodged with the Miami-Dade Ethics Commission, often dealing with his and Becker’s ability to sway city politics through lobbying and representing clients. The ethics commission only made two adverse findings against Gongora: that he failed to file his financial disclosures on time in 2018, and that he leveraged his office to secure tickets to the 80s rock band New Order last year.

The Sun-Sentinel identified at least 10 condominium buildings connected to Becker that have appeared in front of the Miami Beach special master - who rules on building code violations - during Gongora’s tenure as a city commissioner. During that time, Gongora made moves suggesting that he wanted to replace the chief special master.

“Commissioner Gongora is an attorney with Becker Poliakoff, a firm which regularly appears before the Special Master. Commissioner Gongora has let it be known that he believes the current special master is too tough on violators and should not be retained,” according to a memo submitted by then-Executive Director of the Miami-Dade Ethics Commission Robert Meyers.

“It is abundantly clear that this case was exceedingly over litigated,” then-County Judge Sandra Bosso-Pardo wrote in her response to Becker’s fee request. “The amount claimed in this case shocks the court” as “duplicative, unreasonable, unnecessary and excessive.”

In 2014, Lepselter declared bankruptcy. In a 2015 letter to Judge Bosso-Pardo, Lepselter’s wife said Becker attorneys were attempting to force them to sell their homesteaded apartment and garnish part of the proceeds in order to pay for the attorneys’ fees. Lepselter finished paying the fees in 2019.

Another resident, Eileen Breitkreutz, sued the association after she said they didn’t let her see financial records. She told the Sun Sentinel that Becker “has rung up about $222,000 in legal fees” she feared she’d owe — roughly the value of her condo. She lost lost the case, but attorneys’ fees have yet to be officially submitted.

The association argued that Faria had agreed that mediation of his complaint over key fobs was confidential. But on the same day he agreed to settle the claim, he wrote to state Sen. Maria Sachs with complaints about Becker’s tactics during the mediation.

source: https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-ne-surfside-collapse-condo-becker-20210928-oa5xaboljrfcxaptqslzujfita-story.html

Your content is great. However, if any of the content contained herein violates any rights of yours, including those of copyright, please contact us immediately by e-mail at media[@]kissrpr.com.