My client wants to privately rent his friend's unit in a condo-hotel to a lady in a wheel chair. Fine, but she has two small dogs, and the resort has “no pets” policy. So, the Front Desk said “no”.
The lady stayed in this resort last year, and there was a problem with her, and she was told to stay away.
I am not involved in the whole thing, but my client is asking my advice, and I suggested he stays out of trouble. He said “sure” and kept digging deeper…
Next day he told me that the lady’s dogs are service dogs. The lady claims that the dogs are service dogs, but can’t produce any documentation. She has some paper from the trainer, but this is not a service dog. And the paper is from 2002… Those dogs may be in heaven now...
Again, I told him not to get into trouble. He again said “Of course” and kept digging deeper into hole.
Then the lady showed up and had an argument at the Front Desk. The Association President was right there, along with other Board Members, as they had the monthly meeting just before it… Unanimous answer was “No”. The lady called the Police. The officer came, he was clueless, so he called his supervisor.
His supervisor was clueless, too, so he went to someone else to get the advice. In their infinite wisdom the Police came with the answer, that unless the Association can disprove that these are not service dogs, they couldn’t kick the lady out.
My client understands it as if he now can rent to her with no problem. The funny part is that he does not understand that his problems are just starting. And when I say that, he is looking at me in disbelief. Police said this, so how come this can bite him?
Well, the simplest thing is that after he lets her rent the unit the Association will send him a note that according to the rules, pets are not allowed, and that he has to make sure there are no pets in the unit or he will be fined $100 a day until he pays $1,000. This is in the Rules & Regulations.
At this moment it will become his problem to provide the proof that these are service dogs, which are not, so he would face a trouble of evicting a handicap person, who would calls police and would not let him do it, so he will have to go through the eviction process, which is not going to be easy for him.
Evicting is not an amicable procedure and evicting a handicap woman may not even be feasible at all. The judge could easily say that my client rented while being warned that the dogs are not service dogs, so he can’t evict, and if the association charges him, so be it.
My client does not like it.
He comes next day and says that he called her and said he does not want to rent to her, but she said she would sue him. He looks scared.
Why is she threatening to sue him? Turned out he signed a lease. She has a signed lease.
I am speechless. Here is something my client is missing completely. The unit in question belongs to his friend, he is not the owner. I am telling him that he might have a serious problem, bigger than what he thinks he has.
If she sues him, her attorney will quickly figure out that he actually is not the owner, nor a real estate licensee. Signing a residential lease for another person makes him practicing real estate without a license, and in Florida it is a felony in the 3rd degree, and carries up to 1 year in jail and/or a substantial fine.
He asked me what to do, and I told him that he may start thinking about a good attorney…
And from having no involvement, I ended up with resolving the issue.
And my client did one smart thing in this mess: he is across the Canadian border now and will stay for some time.
I think if you do not know what you are doing, don't do it. Period.
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