More than a month has passed since Brevard County issued a letter notifying residents and owners of condominiums at Versailles Sur La Mer in Melbourne Beach that they would have to find a new place to live.
The four-story building some of them have called home for more than three decades has been condemned, the result of sparse maintenance, neglect and damage from Hurricane Irma. The order, written by chief building official Michael McCaughin, bars anyone from entering the property save two exceptions: removing personal belongings from condominium units, or being authorized to take part in the currently unscheduled demolition of the building.
The reality of the county’s order began to take hold last week as a steady line of cars, trucks and moving vans lined the entrance, hauling away the belongings of the residents who remain.
For the residents of Versailles Sur La Mer, legal recourse is murky at best. Florida’s statutes regarding condominiums, which the state legislature amended following hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, established new procedures for post-storm repairs. The mandates apply not only to new projects, but to condo associations such as Versailles Sur La Mer that existed prior to the bill’s passage.
Fort Lauderdale attorney Joseph Adams blogged about condominiums and hurricanes in a late October post on his own website. He addressed some of the issues now facing Versailles Sur La Mer.
“For homeowner associations it’s pretty easy,” Adams wrote. “The association repairs damage to common area and the owner repairs damage to his or her home. Things are a bit more complicated for condominiums.”
Here’s the gist, according to Adams: Under the new rules enacted in 2008, condo associations must insure all of the original improvements installed by the developer. That appears to place the onus on the legal owners of the condominiums.
There are exceptions: floors, walls, ceiling coverings, appliances, built-in cabinets and countertops, and window treatments in individual units are the responsibility of the individual owner. In short, items that serve only a specific condominium and not the entire community.
A condo association’s list of responsibilities includes things like air conditioning equipment and interior drywall. Adams cautioned that the responsibility to insure differs from the obligation to regularly maintain and repair units.
At Versailles Sur La Mer, each unit pays a monthly fee, currently $675. Homeowner documents indicate the money is used to cover insurance, landscaping, pool maintenance, water and sewer costs, trash pickup, and security. There’s no mention of building upkeep.
“I have seen disputes over post-hurricane repair efforts still going on five years after a storm, and a few cases that last substantially longer,” Adams cautioned.
Last fall Versailles homeowners approved projects to repair porches, balconies, decking and walkways in front of the building. The former president of the HOA stepped down in September and has since moved away. It’s unclear if any of the work was performed.
“It was once a beautiful place,” said one Versailles Sur La Mer resident last week. He asked to withhold his name because he wasn’t the primary tenant of the condo in which he lived. “From every window the view is of the ocean. It was spectacular.”
The beauty of the ocean, however, can’t mask problems in the condominium tower.
Along the front of the building, exterior walls are damaged in numerous places, mostly cracks and missing plaster. Looking to the upper floors, walkways between units rely on sheets of plywood as the primary walking surface, and many of the balconies were inaccessible because air conditioning units had been placed on them.
A recent indicator of decline at Versailles Sur La Mer emerged in the local real estate market well before the November condemnation. As properties along Florida’s Treasure Coast bucked predictions and fetched higher prices throughout 2017, the condos at Versailles Sur La Mer – with a few hundred feet of ocean frontage – lost 10 percent of their assessed value between 2015 and 2017. As an example, one condo valued at $330,440 in 2015 slipped to $297,470 this year, according to Brevard County property records.
Mike McAdams, lead inspector for A.E.C.I., performed inspections on five key structural components at Versailles Sur La Mer: walls, columns/piers, floors, ceilings and ingress. All five were assigned the lowest rating: Each needed to be repaired or replaced.
In numerous condo units throughout the building, inspectors found stress cracks in and around windows, doors, walls and ceilings. One unit had a cracked mirror, the result of what McAdams called “racking.” In layman’s terms, the wall had physically twisted.
Mark Daniel was among the handful of people removing items from a condo unit last week. Property records reveal his parents, Rene and Yvonne Daniel, bought their condominium in June 1982, shortly after the Versailles development opened.
“I used to come here as a child,” Daniel said. “I was just 9 years old. I still love the place.” The Daniels family may come out of the ordeal in a better position than most. Their unit cost roughly $145,000 in 1982, and by now is likely owned free and clear.
Also inspected by AECI was the subterranean bottom floor of Versailles Sur La Mer, where owners park their cars. McAdams found that both the garage ceiling and walls needed to be repaired or replaced. Put simply, the condominium building failed to pass any of the architectural or structural tests conducted by McAdams.
Some two-dozen tropical storms and hurricanes have impacted Florida’s Treasure Coast since 1981. Over time, the constant pounding potentially weakened steel beams used to support Versailles Sur La Mer. McCaughin said as much in his Nov. 6 report that shut down the condominium complex, and specifically singled out Hurricane Irma’s winds as exacerbating “extreme structural support issues.”
Upkeep of buildings such as Versailles Sur La Mer falls squarely on the ownership. Inspections are not routine, according to Don Walker, communications officer for Brevard County. “The Building Code Division does not perform periodic inspections of existing buildings.”
