Some millennials are moving into neighborhoods with built-in golf and yoga that let them live like carefree retirees

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Some young professionals say they’re moving to communities to enjoy outdoor activities like golf and yoga.

They said the pandemic helped them value outdoor space and leisure time — akin to living like retirees.

Each generation follows a similar journey: Rent in a city when you’re young, move to the suburbs once you’re ready to settle down and have children, and, eventually, retire in a well-maintained community. But some millennials and Gen Zers are choosing to fast forward to retirement-style living.

Most retirement communities offer activities to keep residents active — yoga, golf, and water aerobics, to name a few — and younger generations don’t want to wait to enjoy those perks. Pandemic-mandated lockdowns also helped popularize outdoor activities like golf and pickleball.

A few real-estate developers noted this preference for more vibrant and relaxed living spaces, adding resort-style amenities to their new apartment buildings and gated communities.

Take Brandon and Chelsea Lehmann, a young couple working in the electrical distribution industry. In 2019, they moved from the Bay Area to Bend, Oregon, a city three hours south of Portland known for its robust outdoor scene.

In 2023, they bought a lot to build a new home in Juniper Reserve, a members-only wellness resort in Bend with two 18-hole golf courses — one designed by retired pro player Jack Nicklaus — and a spa.

Residents of Juniper Reserve, which has more than 20 homes for sale ranging from $1.2 million to $3.5 million as of July 2024, also enjoy luxuries such as on-site casual dining restaurants and weekly “wellness programming.”

They said their nearly 3,000-square-foot house — off the eighth-hole pond of one of the golf courses — will be finished in the next two years. The lot cost them $246,000, including a one-time membership fee of $115,000, which they can pay monthly at $1,200.

A membership allows the couple to take advantage of all there is to do even before their house is complete. After work and on weekends, Brandon, 29, told Business Insider, they golf and do yoga.

Chelsea, 28, said that while they’re not the only young couple living in Juniper Reserve, most of their neighbors are in their 50s or 60s.

“Our neighbors, and the people we would be spending the most time around, would definitely be in the retirement age or semi-retirement,” she told BI.

The Lehmans have embraced the opportunity to bond with their older neighbors, creating a multi-generational community.

“They do want some younger, fresher blood in there, and I think it’s just been great for everyone,” Chelsea said.

“It’s not just retirement-age people that like all the amenities — us young people like to be taken care of, too,” she added.

Having a golf course close to home is an attraction for some young people

Millennials are keeping the lights on at some golf-course companies, said Keith Poliakoff, a managing partner at a Florida law firm, Government Law Group, that has several golf-design firms as clients.

“When COVID happened, there was almost an overnight change that could be recognized as far as interest in golf occurred,” Poliakoff told BI.

“We saw a huge uptick in the younger population that were looking to do a sport and to have something to do so that they were not cooped up in their homes the entire time,” he added.

The National Golf Foundation (NGF) told Business Insider in an email that the 30 to 39 age group has the second-highest participation in the sport, with nearly 4.4 million golfers. Meanwhile, the 18 to 34 age group is the largest, with 6.3 million golfers. NGF estimated both age groups have added roughly 200,000 golfers each since 2019.

Kevin McDonald, a 44-year-old “cusper” (or a Gen Xer who sits right outside being a millennial), describes himself as a huge golfer.

In 2022, he and his wife, Kristie, 38, bought a property at Hualālai Resort on the Big Island of Hawaii after living just outside Toronto for most of their lives. The resort, which has a few homes starting at $7 million and condos starting at $2.5 million, has two golf courses, a spa, and on-site shopping and dining.

Their house started as a secondary home, but golf and other activities have them living in Hawaii for around five months out of the year with the hopes of living there full-time soon. The McDonalds said they wanted a home to suit their active lifestyles.

“We have so many friends who work until they’re 65 and 70 — some choose to, and some have to,” Kevin told BI. “But then you might not be young enough or active enough to take advantage of all those things like golf and tennis.”

They don’t mind that only a handful of other homeowners they’ve met or seen are their age.

“Everyone we talked to says we are the youngest couple at the property,” Kevin said.

Real estate developers are responding to young people’s shifting preferences

Some young people even live in places better known for welcoming retirees.

St. Petersburg, Florida, for example, is evolving to suit younger residents, said Nick Pantuliano, the head of development at real-estate firm PTM Partners. The firm mainly builds commercial and residential spaces in lower-income areas of Florida and beyond.

“St. Pete was regarded as a retirement community not that long ago,” Pantuliano said. “My first introduction to St. Pete was the movie ‘Cocoon.’ All the shuffleboard scenes were filmed there. Now it’s not older folks playing shuffleboard; it’s all younger people playing.”

Now PTM is intentionally planning projects that cater to younger audiences, Pantuliano added.

Plans for PTM’s Edge Collective, a mixed-use development in downtown St. Petersburg, include a Moxy hotel with a rooftop pool and restaurant, a 7,000-square-foot communal garden, and 3,400 square feet dedicated to “health-focused retail,” including the boutique fitness studio Solidcore.

“Doing outdoor in a creative way — so that you’re never too far away from fresh air or some sunlight or some energy — is really important to us when we try to approach programming these projects,” Pantuliano said.

Having intentional outdoor amenities seems to be paying off in places like Juniper Reserve. For Chelsea, a golf course community’s “selling point” was simply the ability to enjoy nature.

“I could go either way on living on a golf course — it didn’t really matter to me,” she added. “But the idea that when the golf course is closed, then you have this great big space between you and your neighbors. It’s empty, it’s dark, and it’s also pretty to look at. It’s like living on parkland.”

Article Link: Some millennials are moving into neighborhoods with built-in golf and yoga that let them live like carefree retirees
Author: Jordan Pandy

HOAs, condos among new laws starting July 1

Florida has a spate of new laws that took effect on July 1, with several that could have big impacts for real estate professionals, developers, homebuyers and more. Here are some of the most significant real estate legislation from the most recent legislative term:

This general bill was crafted and introduced by the Commerce Committee, the State Administration & Technology Appropriations Subcommittee, the Regulatory Reform & Economic Development Subcommittee and Rep. Vicki Lopez, R-Miami, among others, so it covers a lot of ground.

The main thrust of the bill is condominiums and the associations that govern them. Following the passage of SB 4-D, the measure passed in the wake of the Surfside condominium collapse, this new set of regulations makes condo association officers legally liable for the documentation of inspections, budgets, and assessments, as well as outlining procedures for meetings and voting, and other governance details.

Relevant to anyone interested in buying or selling a condo, the new law requires associations for any building with 25 or more units must share all budget and maintenance records to owners and prospective buyers. (Previously, this was only mandated for buildings with 150 or more units.)

This is a game-changer for condo buyers being able to make informed decisions, according to Realtor Meshell Carbajal of EXP Realty in Altamonte Springs. “If you’re thinking of moving into a condo and you don’t see a lot of reserves for maintenance and upkeep, that’s a red flag,” she said. “You might be stuck with a $10,000 that’s due within the first 90 days of buying your condo.”

How big of a boat will your HOA allow on your property? What size dog are you allowed to have?

HB 59, by Rep. Kristen Arrington, D-Kissimmee, mandates HOAs provide copies of all rules and covenants to homeowners and potential buyers, so people don’t learn the answers to these questions by being fined for getting them wrong. Carbajal said she has had several buyers in the past who learned too late that some part of their life – whether it was signage on a company vehicle or just the breed of a pet – wasn’t allowed by their new HOA.

“Knowing the rules really matters,” Carbajal said. “With inventory being as low as it is, you might not be able to get that house you found.”

Developers who wish to demolish and replace aging buildings along the coast have found themselves in contention with neighbors and municipalities being fiercely protective of their coastal communities, according to attorney Keith Poliakoff of the Fort Lauderdale-based Government Law Group.

Poliakoff said some cities would set regulations that would make buildings incompatible with FEMA standards, or even declare their beach zones historic districts, making it harder to get permits for any kind of development.

“Many developers were stuck in a Catch-22 of not being able to redevelop old buildings on the beach,” Poliakoff said.

SB 1526, submitted by Sen. Bryan Avila, R-Hialeah Gardens, takes away the right of local governments to restrict the demolishing of buildings deemed unsafe or nonconforming, a status Poliakoff, who worked on the bill, said applies to almost all coastal buildings built before modern FEMA standards.

Poliakoff said developers and owners of some of these buildings are excited by the new prospects this law opens up. “Many of them are now looking at their old oceanfront properties to figure out how to start the redevelopment process.”

Senate Bill 280 – Vacation Rentals (vetoed)

This bill, by Sen. Nick DiCeglie, R-St. Petersburg, was vetoed at the last minute by Gov. Ron DeSantis, but it’s worth knowing as it is likely to make a return in another form.

SB 280 would have required owners of properties being listed for short-term rental on sites such as Airbnb and VRBO to register their rentals with the local municipality. How the registration databases would be managed and paid for was left to the governing bodies, as was enforcement against properties that rented without registering. It also allowed municipalities to revoke or suspend the license for properties for reasons that weren’t necessarily related to rental activity.

When vetoing the bill, the governor said it would have created “bureaucratic red tape” for local officials. But the issue is a priority for legislators including Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, so expect the idea to be reconfigured in coming sessions.

Conservation

In addition to passing the new laws, Florida also bought nearly 28,000 acres around the state to be preserved.

In Central Florida, the state purchased 1,361 acres in Seminole County known as the Yarborough Ranch near the Big Econlockhatchee Drainage Basin for $34.5 million. The state also spent $36.1 million on 1,342 acres known as Creek Ranch in eastern Polk County.

Each of these properties were identified as linkage sites that allow wildlife to travel between habitats. “Just about any linkage in the wildlife corridor is crucial,” said Dean Saunders of Lakeland-based commercial real estate broker SVN/Saunders Ralston Dantzler.

Saunders said that both properties were at risk of being turned into developments. “In both of those situations, the state came to the rescue.

Article Link: HOAs, condos among new laws starting July 1
Author: Trevor Fraser

Live Local Act project in Hollywood adds more apartments (Photos)

Condra Property Group has revised its plans to redevelop a group of oceanfront hotels through Florida’s Live Local Act by adding more residential units to the project.

The city’s Technical Advisory Committee will consider the application from the New York-based developer, led by Allen Konstam, on July 1. It concerns 3.33 acres at 2007 and 2115 N. Ocean Drive; 309, 333 and 341 Oklahoma St.; 320 and 324 McKinley St.; 320, 322, 324 and 326 Nebraska St.; and 2012 N. Surf Road.

Located along the city’s famed broadwalk along the beach, the property currently has 123 hotel rooms in mostly two-story buildings, including the Neptune Hollywood Beach Hotel, the Hollywood Beach Seaside and the Casa Pellegrino Boutique Hotel. The developer has it under contract from various owners.

While this area is not zoned for intense multifamily development, the developer wants to build OM Residential under the state’s Live Local Act.

Approved by the Florida Legislature in 2023 and modified with a “glitch bill” this year, the Live Local Act allows developers to bypass city approvals to boost residential density on commercial or industrial sites to the maximum density allowed in the city, and to boost height to the tallest building within a 1-mile radius in most cases, as long as 40% of the residential units are workforce housing. That means the units must be priced for people making up to 120% of area median income.

In 2023, Condra Property Group filed plans for 228 multifamily units, 14,488 square feet of retail and 6,853 square feet of restaurants in 18 stories at the site under the Live Local Act.

After receiving feedback from city officials, the developer has revised the plans. Now, OM Residential would feature 282 multifamily units, 11,941 square feet of retail, 9,632 square feet of restaurant/bars and 358 parking space. The tallest building would be 17 stories.

There would be four buildings in the new project. A three-story building along the beach would have a restaurant, beach club and a rooftop pool. The six-story middle building would contain 114 units of workforce housing, retail and a rooftop pool. The 17-story building would have another restaurant and 168 market-rate residential units. Finally, a seven-story building on the south side of the site would have ground-floor retail and a parking garage.

The workforce and market-rate buildings would have separate sets of amenities, including gyms, lounges and party rooms.

Units in the workforce building would range from 522-square-foot studios to 975 square feet with two bedrooms, and have an average size of 598 square feet.

In the market-rate building, units would range from 580-square-foot studios to 2,000 square feet with three bedrooms, and have an average size of 861 square feet.

The Live Local Act doesn’t require that workforce and market-rate units have similar sizes and access to the same amenities.

Local attorney Keith Poliakoff, who represents the developer in the application, couldn’t be reached for comment. Hollywood-based Kaller Architecture designed the project.

The parties that Condra Property Group has the properties under contract with are CPG309 LLC, Astrid 7 LLC, JW CPG Hollywood 2 LLC, Pellegrino Nachum LLC, Maria Olivera, Julia 2 LLC, Paradise Julia Terrace LLC, YS Real Estate Investments LLC, Julia 1 LLC, Astrid 2 LLC, Astrid 10 LLC and Astrid 4 LLC.

Article Link: Live Local Act project in Hollywood adds more apartments (Photos)
Author: Brian Bandell

Fore Sale! Suddenly Golf Seems More of an Asset Class Than Ever

Credit the prospect of four-day workweeks and the expansion of off-course options like of Topgolf

Near the San Juan Mountains, Colorado’s Cornerstone Club pairs a tranquil lake, four pickleball courts and a residential community with a 7,800-yard golf course, a quality-of-life asset that’s experienced an upswing since the pandemic. 

“People want to live on a golf course,” said Keith Poliakoff, a managing partner at Government Law Group, who works with redesigned golf courses, primarily in Florida. “It becomes the focal point of a community and a way of life.”

When the housing market crashed circa 2008, fewer people had disposable income to prioritize golf. Once COVID hit, however, “suddenly everybody was a golfer,” said Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group. “The pandemic was all about being outdoors and being physically separated.”

Last year, some 123 million people participated in golf, whether by playing it, listening to a related podcast, or reading about or watching the sport, according to the National Golf Foundation (NGF). That’s 30 percent more Americans involved with golf than in 2016. On the infrastructure side, the United States finished 2023 with roughly 16,000 golf courses across 14,000 golf facilities. (These facility statistics are consistent with previous years, even before the pandemic; the golf industry focuses more on redevelopment than new development.)

Such demand caught the attention of hedge fund billionaire and New York Mets owner Steve Cohen, who, alongside other investors, plans to invest up to $3 billion in PGA Tour Enterprises, the PGA Tour’s for-profit entity. Cohen rationalized the investment with the prospect of a four-day workweek, which would increase leisure time. (Since that prediction earlier this spring, however, federal regulators outlined reporting requirements that may bring many bankers at least into the office five days a week.)

Yet golf’s successes may have less to do with a potential four-day workweek than with the wider evolution of today’s post-pandemic workplace. COVID increased the demand for outdoor spaces while normalizing hybrid or remote-work models. Consequently, people of all ages funneled more free time into golf, and embraced nontraditional, informal iterations of the sport.

As golf demand continues to surge, associated developments are broadening the sport’s potential, leveraging golf for other real estate opportunities. In recent years, developers have increasingly funneled investments into golf-adjacent hospitality and residential assets, charting the literal and figurative course for golf courses of the future. 

Work from home largely explains why golf has stuck around since the pandemic, said Matt Dusenberry, principal at Dusenberry Golf Course Design, which helped design Colorado’s Cornerstone Club. If someone’s working from home, they can fit in a game before or after work, even if they’re working every day. 

Florida — one of the country’s top golf states — had lenient lockdown restrictions, calling attention to golf in the early stages of the pandemic. “Golf was kept open, and it really created a massive boom to the hobby, to the sport,” said Cameron Kimball, a Florida resident and vice president of sales at the Residences at St. Regis Los Cabos at Quivira, a 33-acre property that includes Mexico’s Quivira Golf Club, 74 residences and a 120-room hotel.

Flexible work schedules particularly appeal to millennials and young adults between 18 and 34, some of whom know no other way of working. They have emerged as golf’s top customer bracket, per the NGF. (Engagement with young adults has been steady over the last 10 years, though the demographic may be priced out of traditional golf courses and clubs. Kimball’s residences range from $4.6 to $12 million, with a target demographic aged 40 to 65.)

It’s the younger golfers who may be steering the sport away from its formalities — and opening the door for newer golf assets. “Whether it’s at a private club or a resort, probably the highest growth [in new golf development] is in what we call nontraditional golf,” said Dusenberry.

Perhaps nothing better exemplifies this shift than the rise in Topgolf and similar off-course developments that require neither the space or time nor the formalities of traditional golf courses. Instead, they leverage the sport as a medium of entertainment and, without a need for a large swath of land, allow development closer to city centers.

In 2023, roughly 26.6 million Americans over the age of 5 exclusively played golf on courses, but another 18.4 million participated exclusively in off-course variants like Topgolf, driving ranges and golf simulators, according to the NGF. Of those Americans, 6.3 million young adults played golf on a course, while 5.8 million stayed off-course. 

Real estate reflects these statistics. In 2022, the Empire State Building announced plans to build a golf simulator, while the developers of Huntsville, Ala.’s MidCity prioritized building Topgolf, which is currently open even as the rest of the 140-acre development is still under construction. In Colorado, Cornerstone Club — designed in part by Dusenberry — invested in an indoor-outdoor bar space, presenting golf as just one aspect of a larger leisure ecosystem. In fact, Government Law Group’s Poliakoff would guess that Topgolf makes more money on alcohol and food than it does on its namesake sport. 

Such attention to golf-adjacent amenities hints at the sport’s fundamental real estate opportunity: increasing the value of surrounding hotels and residences. On its own, golf inefficiently uses land, and redeveloping a course can cost anywhere from a few million dollars to tens of millions. Even if a property charges $100 a round, it’s unlikely to recoup the investment, said Poliakoff. 

“The developer has to take land into consideration and the cost of not doing residential on that land,” said Kimball. “You can sell houses around that golf course and thereby increase the value of the land and/or product around the golf course. But if you didn’t build the golf course at all, would you actually be able to sell the land for more?”

To maximize profit, golf courses sustain themselves with complementary components, like hotel rooms. Take the golf course at Puerto Rico’s St. Regis Bahia Beach, which in 2021 recorded its most golf rounds played since the hotel’s 2009 opening. “Every year after that we have seen an increase in rounds of 4 to 5 percent,” Alberto Rios, the hotel’s head of golf operations, told Commercial Observer via email. “In the last two years, golf group activity has also increased by 15 to 20 percent.”

The Residences at St. Regis Los Cabos at Quivira focuses not only on hospitality but also on residential, using golf to drive up a residence’s unit price per square foot, said Kimball, the project’s vice president of sales. Even non-golfers reselling or renting a property want to avoid missing out on a valuable market segment, he said, and without a golf course, a development may lose customers to similarly priced competitors. Hotels or residences also draw a steady clientele to the golf course, so there’s more security that golfers will actually come to play. 

Golf has the potential to not only increase property value but to also mitigate the effects of climate change … though the sport uses its fair share of water. (On average, golf courses across the United States use a total of 1.5 billion gallons a day, according to the United States Golf Association.)

Despite golf’s impact on the climate, water remains on the mind for golf developers as they redevelop courses. Clubs’ most costly infrastructure expense is typically irrigation, Dusenberry said, “and we know probably the long-term threat of golf in these arid regions is water use.” 

Water use, as well as fertilizer, is likely to be increasingly scrutinized through future regulation, so Dusenberry is already considering these factors in his designs. Developers likewise need to be mindful to plan their courses around accessibility to water, said CoStar’s Freitag. 

“Golf courses now are also seen as the central drainage feature for many communities,” said Poliakoff. “So, when the golf courses are being redeveloped, we are being asked by local governments to redesign the courses to almost look now like Northern courses.” For example, South Florida courses have traditionally been flat, but redesigns include drainage features that turn the courses into temporary reservoirs that can hold stormwater runoff. 

Golf’s adaptability to both environmental and work-from-home climates bodes well for the sport’s future, though golf still, largely, requires time and money. As more people return to the office, Freitag said the financial question is: “Is it wise for resorts, as they develop amenities, to invest in that infrastructure?” 

For now, the answer seems to be yes, with golf’s demand stronger than its current supply. Dusenberry likened golf to housing: There’s been a sustained period of time without new construction, with tee sheets full and club waiting lists long. Renovations occupy about 80 percent of golf design and construction work, while new construction warrants about 20 percent. Five years ago, the percent ratio would’ve been even starker at 95 to 5, he said. 

However incremental, the increase reflects interest. “Knowing the expense [of redevelopment], if no one was playing, there’s no way they would spend the money doing it,” said Poliakoff.

Anna Staropoli can be reached at astaropoli@commercialobserver.com

Article Link: Fore Sale! Suddenly Golf Seems More of an Asset Class Than Ever
Author: Anna Staropoli

Boca Raton: Recusal order affirmed

‘Clear bias’ against beach home puts key figures off case

A year after verbally ordering Boca Raton to reconsider its 2019 denial of a permit to build a four-story home on the beach, a federal judge has put his decision in writing.

“It is hereby declared” that plaintiff Natural Lands LLC “has the right to build a single-family, detached dwelling” at 2500 N. Ocean Blvd., “subject to satisfying the city’s CCCL variance criteria,” U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith said in a written final judgment he handed down on March 22.

In addition, Smith said that Mayor Scott Singer’s “bias was clear” and he would have to recuse himself from any future decisions on whether to give Natural Lands a variance to the city’s Coastal Construction Control Line, which limits building east of State Road A1A.

Also ordered to recuse themselves were Council members Andrea O’Rourke and Monica Mayotte, who were similarly found to be unfairly biased. But both have been term-limited out of office, O’Rourke in March 2023 and Mayotte on April 1.

Smith also ordered a host of city officials to steer clear of any future CCCL application by Natural Lands, including City Manager George Brown, Department of Development Services Director Brandon Schaad and environmental engineering consultant Michael Jenkins.

“The city shall ensure that its review, analysis, and/or processing of plaintiff’s CCCL application shall be sanitized such that anyone who previously reviewed, analyzed, or evaluated plaintiff’s prior application shall recuse themselves from any future proceedings, as the court finds that they too were tainted, directly or indirectly,” Smith ruled in an associated document on March 7.

Boca Raton reopened its appeal of the case the same day. It had appealed Smith’s ruling shortly after he voiced his decision on the last day of the March 20-24, 2023, non-jury trial. But the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the city had to wait until Smith filed his written judgment.

Smith also gave the Natural Lands attorneys until May to file their legal bill, which he said the city would have to pay.

The Natural Lands legal team celebrated the judgment.

“We are thrilled that the court has entered a written order that fully codifies its oral decision without waiver,” attorney Keith Poliakoff said. “The property owner will continue in its quest to build a home on this property, with the weight of the court order advising the city that it must approve a home at this location.”

Poliakoff said the final judgment, if upheld on appeal, would require the city to pay his team more than $1 million in legal fees and costs.

This was the second adverse court ruling in two months against the city and in favor of beachfront construction. A Palm Beach County circuit judge said on Feb. 1 that Boca Raton “unlawfully withheld and illegally delayed” turning over 42 public records that were prejudicial to the owner of 2600 N. Ocean Blvd., just north of the Natural Lands parcel. That landowner also has been trying to get a building permit for an oceanfront residence.

Robert Sweetapple, one of the lawyers for the 2600 landowner, Delray Beach-based Azure Development LLC, has said his side’s legal bill, also to be paid by the city, will top $1 million as well.

Neither figure includes what Boca Raton has paid its outside lawyers from the law firm Weiss Serota to litigate the cases.

Poliakoff said Natural Lands is working on an alternative design for 2500 N. Ocean to ensure compliance with new floodplain requirements.

“The property owner has always wanted this parcel developed as its winter retreat, so no current plan to sell has been contemplated,” he said.

The case stretches back to 2011 when the landowner first applied for a building permit.

In December 2015 the City Council caused a public outcry when it approved a zoning variance to allow something to be built at 2500 N. Ocean, an 88.5-foot-wide lot. City rules normally require lots at least 100 feet wide.

Natural Lands planned to build a 48-foot-tall, 8,666-square-foot single-family home at the site and obtained a Notice to Proceed from the state Department of Environmental Protection in October 2016.

But the council denied a city CCCL variance on July 23, 2019.

Before the trial, the city offered to pay Natural Lands the $950,000 it paid to buy the parcel if it would drop the case. The partnership declined.

Article Link: Boca Raton: Recusal order affirmed
Author: Mary Kate Leming

‘This is our history’: Fight to preserve historic Black cemetery heats up in Pompano Beach

Westview Community Cemetery is home to the final resting places of some of Broward County’s most influential and pioneering African American families.

A fight to preserve an important piece of Black history is heating up in Pompano Beach. NBC6’s Lorena Inclan reports


A fight to preserve an important piece of Black history is heating up in Pompano Beach.

At the center of it all is Westview Community Cemetery, a historic Black cemetery.

The burial grounds are the final resting place of some of Broward County’s most influential and pioneering African American families.

The battle over the land could soon be settled in a courtroom.

Elijah Wooten, 91, spends every morning walking the grounds at Westview Community Cemetery just off Copans Road.

He not only keeps his family plot nice and tidy, but he also makes it a point to pick up trash and is even going out of pocket to maintain the historic Black cemetery.

“It means more than that to me, the older I get the closer I’m going to be out here so everything that I have that I can give I’m going to give it,” Wooten said.

Wooten was the chairman of the board of trustees for the cemetery from the ’60s to the ’80s now his role is purely a labor of love and commitment.

“I come out here every day and I pray. Most of my friends are out here,” Wooten said.

He wouldn’t have to front his own money if Westview Community Cemetery had been properly maintained — a responsibility, he said, that should fall on the board of trustees that currently runs the cemetery.

An aerial view of Westview shows the widespread disrepair and the signs of years of neglect are evident. In one section, a few rows of concrete vaults are painted in white, but that’s where improvements end.

Many headstones and cement vaults are cracked, and in some cases, falling apart, but the worst example of disrepair is a grave that is essentially exposed and is covered with a tarp to prevent further damage.

Sonya Finney was recently elected by community members to serve on a new cemetery board of trustees, but the problem is that the previous board still has control over the burial grounds.

“They were operating as the board of the cemetery, they were actually operating illegally not under the guidelines of the bylaws which state that there should be nine board members, those four individuals had been operating for years just amongst themselves,” Finney said.

It was that old board that authorized the sale of 4.5 acres of cemetery land to a developer who aims to build an industrial park.

The new board believes there are bodies buried where the developer wants to build.

According to the developer’s attorney, Keith Poliakoff, “ground penetrating radar has confirmed that the property does not contain a single human remain.”

However, Finney believes the proper equipment was not utilized.

“The company that they used to do the sonar was just a company that does utility sonars,” Finney said.

In 2021, Kevin Eason was one of the people who filed a lawsuit against the old board in the hopes of voiding the land purchase, but an appeals court dismissed the lawsuit in 2022.

Eason serves alongside Finney on the newly elected board and has family buried at Westview.

He wore a t-shirt to city meetings that reads, “Stop stealing inherited land.”

“This land was given to us for the Northwest community to bury at an affordable rate because we were not able to bury on the east side,” Eason said.

In a separate lawsuit, the new board is now suing the old board, alleging they’re violating the bylaws.

“Our goal, and I believe I speak on behalf of the new board, is to get control over the cemetery, bring it back up to speed in terms of landscaping, the beautification and things of that nature, and then look to come up with a vision and include the community in that decision,” Finney said.

The case is pending in court.

In a statement to NBC6, Poliakoff said, “This self-appointed Board is attempting to overthrow the legitimate Cemetery Board. The Court of Appeals has conclusively determined that the 2022 sale was legal and proper. Ground penetrating radar has confirmed that the property does not contain a single human remain. The continued attempts by this group to devalue the property with false claims in hopes that they can buy the property at a discount will continue to be met with staunch opposition. The unfortunate aspect of this entire situation is that the cemetery had plans to utilize the sale proceeds for essential improvements. Instead, the cemetery is now forced to squander its limited resources to defend these futile legal battles.”

The new board denies the claims made by Poliakoff.

There’s a real fear among community members that Westview could be erased if something isn’t done. If that happens, it would mean the final resting place of pioneers like actress, Esther Rolle, could be gone.

“This is our history,” Wooten said.

NBC6 did reach out to one of the board members who currently controls the cemetery and authorized the sale of a portion of the land, but we have not heard back.

Article Link: ‘This is our history’: Fight to preserve historic Black cemetery heats up in Pompano Beach
Author: Lorena Inclán

New state law could allow developers to demolish historic buildings

Ocean Drive on Miami’s South Beach. The 1920s and 1930s era buildings within this corridor are immune to a new state law that strips local historic protections for buildings in coastal areas.

A newly enacted state law will make it easier for developers to demolish some historic structures in coastal areas, a Fort Lauderdale land use attorney told the Business Journal.

Keith Poliakoff, co-founder of Government Law Group, said the bill will enable developers to demolish old buildings that weren’t registered with the National Register of Historic Places prior to Jan. 1, 2000.

“As a result of this bill, you will start seeing a tremendous amount of real estate deals where these old properties are finally trading hands at the value that they are worth,” Poliakoff said.

SB 1526, also known as the Resiliency and Safe Structures Act, was signed into law by Governor Ron DeSantis on March 22. The bill primarily deals with properties in special flood hazard areas where there is at least a 26% chance of flooding over the course of a 30-year mortgage. In those places, local governments can’t prevent the demolition of any structure that doesn’t comply with the new requirements of the National Flood Insurance Program, according to an analysis by staff of the Florida Senate’s rules committee.

In short, most cities are severely limited in their ability to protect older buildings along the coast, although an exception was created for barrier island municipalities, such as the town of Palm Beach, with populations of less than 10,000.

Other exceptions include buildings listed in the National Register of Historic Places for at least 24 years, such as the Art Deco Historic District in Miami Beach, or privately owned single-family homes that were designated historic since Jan. 1, 2022.

The bill also bans local governments from mandating a replica of the demolished building, requiring a developer to preserve any part of the demolished structure, or imposing new building requirements. The demo permit must also be approved administratively and without public hearing, the rules committee report stated.

“Within the next 30 days you will start seeing demolition permit requests to ensure that structures can be removed quickly,” said Poliakoff, adding that he has clients in Hollywood and Miami Beach who want to demolish decades-old buildings on their properties that are too expensive to rehab.

Although most of the Art Deco District along Collins Avenue and Ocean Drive in Miami Beach are immune from the law, the same can’t be said for other parts of the city, said Daniel Ciraldo, executive director of the Miami Design Preservation League.

“It could be devastating in Mid Beach, for example the area where the Faena Hotel is located, and the Collins Waterfront Historic District,” Ciraldo said.

Consisting of properties built in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, the Collins Waterfront Historic District in Mid-Beach is on the National Register of Historic Places, but it wasn’t listed January 2011.

Ciraldo said the law is “arbitrary and targets certain places over others.”

“We don’t think legally it will withstand a challenge in the courts,” he said.

Article Link: New state law could allow developers to demolish historic buildings
Author: Erik Bojnansky

Top Real Estate Issues Tackled By Fla. Lawmakers In 2024

Real estate matters remained a high priority for the Florida Legislature during its 2024 session, which wrapped up Friday with lawmakers making revisions to a landmark housing bill, imposing statewide vacation rental regulations, and taking further steps to shore up condominiums and community associations.

Here’s a look at some of the most notable changes lawmakers sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk — and one they didn’t.

Live Local Revisions

Arguably the signature piece of the 2023 session, the Live Local Act caught the attention of real estate developers with tax breaks, building-size bonuses, and the opening of commercial and industrial zoned sites for residential projects in exchange for including affordable and workforce units. But some local governments balked at preemptions of their approval powers, even enacting development moratoriums in response.

When the 2024 session opened in January, Senate Bill 328 looked like it might temper some of those concerns, but the final version that passed appears to do more to clear obstacles to Live Local projects by adding another preemption for floor area ratio, or FAR, which determines buildable square footage, and by reducing parking minimum requirements, while curbing allowed heights only in single-family neighborhoods.

Bill Sklar, a shareholder at Carlton Fields, said Senate leadership made clear to him they did not view S.B. 328 as a “glitch bill” aimed at fixing problems, but instead the first of what is likely to be a series of refinements to the Live Local Act over several years.

Keith Poliakoff, a partner at Government Law Group, also predicted further changes — and tensions.

“While this law attempts to clarify many aspects of the Live Local Act, municipalities are already crafting ways to thwart its effectiveness,” he said. “As a result, there is no doubt that this act will once again be amended next year.”

Vacation Rentals

After more than a decade of unsuccessful attempts, the Legislature passed a bill setting a statewide framework for vacation rentals, which number in the tens of thousands in the state and have become the scourge of some neighborhoods. Indicative of the measure’s controversial nature, S.B. 280 passed by narrow margins, 60-51 in the House and 23-16 in the Senate.

The law empowers the state to license vacation rentals and regulate “advertising platform[s]” such as Airbnb and VRBO, but it does allow local governments to require registration of vacation rentals, set reasonable registration fees and inspect rentals for code compliance. Local governments can also issue fines of up to $500 and suspend rental registrations for violations, but only after multiple violations within set amounts of time and after giving the owner 15 days to resolve the violation.

The new law maintains a “grandfathering” of local restrictions that predate 2011, when the Legislature preempted local regulations prohibiting or restricting the use of vacation rentals. The new law extended the “grandfather” clause to 2016, which amounted to a carveout for policies in Broward and Flagler counties, according to a legislative staff analysis, but the Senate did not pass a last-minute amendment to “grandfather” local regulations passed by June 1, 2024.

The law also sets requirements for advertising platforms to collect and remit taxes and sets occupancy limits for rentals.

Coastal Building Demolitions

The Resiliency and Safe Structures Act, which limits local control over the demolition and replacement of certain coastal buildings, represented another controversial initiative that crossed the finish line after previously falling short.

Opponents said S.B. 1526, which applies to buildings that are deemed unsafe and don’t conform to current National Flood Insurance Program elevation requirements, caters to developer interests and threatens the character of several historic coastal communities, including Miami Beach. But while such criticism killed a similar proposal last year, this time a similar set of carveouts added during the session built momentum and led to passage by 36-2 in the Senate and 86-29 in the House.

Government Law Group’s Poliakoff said that in the wake of more stringent flood plain management requirements, the inability to rehabilitate older structures up to those standards has left numerous coastal buildings vacant and turned them into a blight on the surrounding community.

“Some local governments are so concerned with maintaining community character that they have created major obstacles in getting these obsolete buildings reconstructed,” he said. “This law eliminates the politics by requiring local governments to approve demolition plans for these impacted buildings” and new projects up to maximum allowed heights.

Condos and Community Associations

The Legislature has been scrutinizing condominiums and community associations since the 2021 partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside, which killed 98 people, and the 2022 arrests of current and former board members at the Hammocks Community Association near Miami over an alleged $2.4 million dollar fraud scheme.

Lawmakers’ latest work on these issues and others related to condominiums and community associations ended up largely combined this year in S.B. 1021, which passed unanimously in both chambers.

Among its many parts, the 154-page bill requires condo associations with 25 or more units to make certain records available on a website or mobile app, mandates the maintenance of additional accounting records, and establishes criminal penalties for willful failure to comply and destruction of records.

It also adds conflict of interest disclosure requirements related to the hiring of community association managers and bids for other services, and it provides additional criminal penalties for board members accepting kickbacks or interfering with elections.

“I guess after investigating what happened with the Hammocks, they realized that there’s a lot of shortcomings in protections for the homeowners,” said Kevin Koushel, a partner at Bilzin Sumberg Baena Price & Axelrod LLP, but he added these new requirements and penalties could have a chilling effect on finding residents willing to volunteer for association boards.

Following up on building safety reforms made in 2022’s S.B. 4D and last year’s S.B. 154, the Legislature added a requirement for board member education on the milestone structural inspections and reserve requirements established in those previous bills. S.B. 1021 also exempts four-family dwellings of three or fewer stories above ground from having to undergo the new milestone inspections.

But lawmakers notably did not extend the inspection deadlines at the end of 2024 for condos to complete their milestone inspections or take any steps to provide financing programs or assistance for condos.

“I think there was some hope, at least from a lot of the condo associations, that the deadlines would be extended or some additional ability to sign contracts and have the work deferred,” Koushel said.

“I wish they did, but they didn’t,” Carlton Fields’ Sklar said of the potential for financing help, but he said House Speaker Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, felt strongly they “were not going to kick the can down the road” on the inspection and reserve requirements.

Lawmakers also rolled in proposals from two other bills to update definitions in the Condo Act to acknowledge the creation of condominiums within multi-use or multi-parcel projects, which is relevant to the growing trend of branded residences in condo-hotel and other mixed-use projects.

Additional provisions require clear declarations of how costs and control of those projects will be apportioned with these partial condos, and they mandate disclosures of these agreements for new and resale transactions of units.

“Those are, in my estimation, significant consumer protections that did not previously exist,” Sklar said.

Foreign Ownership Limits

One of the Legislature’s actions that drew the most attention in 2023 was the passage of S.B. 264, which severely limited land and real estate investment by people and interests tied to the People’s Republic of China and six other “foreign countries of concern.”

The Republican-controlled Legislature delivered on a top priority of DeSantis ahead of his ill-fated presidential run despite considerable controversy and questions about the law’s clarity. Some investors, especially private equity funds, have expressed concerns that noncontrolling members of a fund would be restricted individuals under the law.

Lawmakers looked into providing more clarity on certain parts of the law and potentially loosening some of the restrictions on Chinese individuals in S.B. 814, but DeSantis made clear during a press event that he opposed any backtracking, and ultimately no changes were made — leaving some attorneys and their fund clients looking for more.

“A lot of us are hoping that the administrative side, the bureaucratic side that’s making the rules and interpreting the rules can clarify that and maybe put out guidance that stresses that squarely enough that people will feel comfortable,” said Joe Hernandez, a partner at Bilzin Sumberg, who noted the firm has received calls since the law’s enactment from concerned fund clients.

–Editing by Haylee Pearl and Philip Shea.

Article Link: Top Real Estate Issues Tackled By Fla. Lawmakers In 2024
Author: Nathan Hale

Real Estate Transactions: Keith Poliakoff, Government Law Group

Check out the professionals who are finalists in the Real Estate Transactions category as part of the Florida Legal Awards.

Keith Poliakoff, with Government Law Group, is a finalist for the Daily Business Review’s 2024 Real Estate Transactions award.

What are some of your most significant achievements of the past year?

Some of my most significant achievements have involved golf course redevelopments in 2023. For example, I helped to lead the redevelopment of the Emerald Hills Golf Course into a Jack Nickluas-designed course that features approximately 500 units of housing. I also won an award from the City of Hollywood for the redevelopment of the Orangebrook Golf course, to transform the Rees Jones designed course by bringing 800 units of housing and golf amenities.

I also won approval for BTI Partners 900 unit tower in Hollywood and the complete redevelopment of the Southland Mall in Cutler Bay. Altogether I oversaw more than $3 billion in new development deals in 2023.

Florida’s real estate market is continually among the hottest in the country. What are your thoughts on that?

The influx of capital from the Northeast and the growing demand for housing continues to fuel a construction boom in South Florida’s urban cores. Investors and developers have discovered areas like downtown Hollywood where there is room for smart redevelopment to bring housing opportunities to an area so close to some of Broward’s largest employment centers like the port and the airport. The opportunities in South Florida abound. A good example is the City of Hollywood, which is taking a proactive approach to attracting investment and businesses to a community that has so much to offer.

What does it take to become a trusted real estate/transactional lawyer in Florida?

Honesty is essential to becoming a successful land-use attorney. Relationships are essential to success. You need to be honest with municipal leaders about the pros and cons of projects you represent. You also have to have quality clients who will see projects through, otherwise your reputation with civic leaders may be tarnished.

Article Link: Real Estate Transactions: Keith Poliakoff, Government Law Group
Author: Daily Business Review

Debt-Stricken Homeowners Fight Back After High Court Ruling

Alan DiPietro watches one of his two rams on his Massachusetts alpaca farm in the spring of 2023. After seeing portions of his land foreclosed on due to delinquent taxes and other obligations, DiPietro is suing to recoup what he says is more than $300,000 in excess value the government holds. (Courtesy of Alan DiPietro)

Alan DiPietro merely wanted more land for his alpacas.

It was 2014, and the Massachusetts engineer had been raising a herd of the camelid mammals for half a dozen years and selling their fleece. Looking for more space for his alpacas to roam, he bought 34 acres in the contiguous towns of Bolton and Stow in eastern Massachusetts.

His idea was simple: With only minimal changes, he could turn that undeveloped land into an alpaca farm.

After falling behind on tax payments and facing a fine for an alleged wetlands law violation, however, the local government foreclosed on some of that land to make good on DiPietro’s debt.

That was December 2021.

“It was clear that they were going to take everything, but I had gotten myself to the land court hearings about the tax title foreclosure, and they said, ‘There’s nothing you can do about it. You need to get an attorney.’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t think the attorney’s going to tell me anything different,'” DiPietro told Law360 in a recent interview.

Since then, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark decision finding a Minnesota county could not keep the excess equity it reaped after foreclosing on a woman’s condominium in order to resolve a tax lien.

While Massachusetts law similarly allows the state to keep excess equity in cases where the property is worth more than the debt owed, DiPietro is now going to court to get back what he alleges is more than $300,000 in excess value the local government holds.

State laws vary considerably on the practice, which some have dubbed “home equity theft,” with many outlawing the practice but some allowing it. The practice is common in the states that allow it, and a recent study by the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents DiPietro in the lawsuit he filed against the town of Bolton last January, found governments have taken more than $777 million in equity from homeowners.

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year in Tyler v. Hennepin County, however, states that permit the practice have seen a wave of new litigation from homeowners looking to challenge it and efforts by lawmakers to reform it.

The Pacific Legal Foundation told Law360 it has discussed reforms with legislators in Alabama and Idaho, and bills are planned or expected in Alaska, California, Illinois, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island.

“We do believe that there are ripple effects and ramifications from the decision. We think they could go in various directions,” said Buck Dougherty, senior counsel at Liberty Justice Center. “Most of the work going on right now is happening in the legislatures in various states. … Everyone’s trying to figure out how they’re going to navigate Tyler and what that’s going to look like.”

Meanwhile, lawsuits challenging the practice have been filed in more than half a dozen states.

“It’s amazing to me that, even after the Tyler decision, that anyone can question whether they’re operating unconstitutionally,” DiPietro said. “It seems crazy that it can be different in the different states.”

Home Equity ‘Theft’ Reform Was Long in the Making

Tax-delinquent homeowners face vastly different experiences in states that ban home equity “theft” versus states that allow it.

For homeowners in the majority of states that have outlawed the practice, the process is quite simple: When government takes property through tax foreclosure and then sells it, the difference between sale price and debt owed must by law be returned to the homeowner.

But in Massachusetts, Minnesota and other states, homeowners have routinely been told, as DiPietro was, that there’s nothing to be done. The local government is simply following state law, which allows for the practice.

In short, whether falling behind on taxes wipes out a homeowner’s life savings in equity and upends their lives has been largely dependent on where they choose to live. And in states where governments are allowed to hang onto excess equity, it’s been the very low-income owners who have been largely impacted.

“Seventy-five percent identify as Black or African American, and 75% identify as having household incomes of less than $30,000,” Dougherty said.

The more than a dozen states that allow for the practice have raked in millions of dollars in the last decade alone, according to a report from American Property Owners Alliance, which found governments took $780 million in equity from homeowners from 2014 to 2021 through tax foreclosures on 8,600 homes.

The Supreme Court case that’s now called the practice into question comes out of Minnesota, where Geraldine Tyler fell behind by $15,000 in taxes and other penalties on her Twin Cities condominium.

When the government took the property and later sold it for $40,000, it pocketed the $25,000 equity difference. When Tyler sued, both a federal district judge and the Eighth Circuit on appeal found Hennepin County had acted within its rights under Minnesota law. The U.S. Supreme Court took the case in 2022 and decided in favor of Tyler in May 2023.

The high court found Hennepin County keeping that $25,000 difference was a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause, which bars governments from taking private property without just compensation.

The U.S. Supreme Court did not weigh in on the plaintiff’s allegation of an Eighth Amendment violation — that Hennepin County’s actions rose to the level of an excessive fine.

Bay State Has Seen a Flurry of Post-Tyler Activity

Long before the Supreme Court took up Tyler, DiPietro had been scrambling.

He had gone through a divorce and was facing a $26,000 fine for allegedly violating the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act as well as Stow and Bolton’s bylaws when he installed fencing and made other land improvements too close to an area of wetlands. He had also fallen behind on a roughly $6,000 tax payment, which later started accruing interest at a clip of 16% per year.

All told, by 2021, when the town of Bolton foreclosed on the land DiPietro owned there, his debts to the town had grown to roughly $60,000. The land in Bolton is worth $370,000 for tax purposes, leaving an equity difference of roughly $310,000 that the local government is holding.

When DiPietro learned the local government was taking his property and would not be paying him the difference between market value and debt owed, he naturally sought a legal opinion.

At the time, home equity “theft” was not grabbing national headlines, and a lawyer told DiPietro there was simply nothing to be done — that Massachusetts allowed the practice and the local government was following the law.

“I got an attorney, and he said, ‘There’s nothing you can do about it. Either pay or they take it. That’s just the way it is,'” DiPietro said. “He never raised any Fifth Amendment issue. He never raised anything about the constitutionality of the statute. Nothing. So nobody was helping. Nobody was thinking that way.”

Shortly after the December 2021 foreclosure, DiPietro got in contact with the Pacific Legal Foundation, which agreed to represent him pro bono. DiPietro filed his lawsuit against Bolton in January 2023.

“It’s a blessing to me because I could not afford that,” DiPietro said. “I couldn’t afford … a top-rate attorney, much less one of national caliber.”

DiPietro’s suit is just one of several cases proceeding in Massachusetts, which has also seen recent bills in its House and Senate aimed at addressing the question of home equity theft.

On the litigation front, the City of Springfield and the Town of Tyngsborough are both involved in legal battles with homeowners who claim they’re being robbed of equity in their property.

The former case concerns Springfield homeowner Ashley Mills, who fell behind by more than $20,000 on taxes on her home yet had more than $200,000 in equity in the property. In the latter case, Tyngsborough is in a court battle over whether it can foreclose on the home of Paula Recco and keep the equity difference.

Meanwhile, the state’s attorney general issued guidance late last year clarifying that, under its reading of the Hennepin decision, an unconstitutional taking has occurred if equity is greater than debt when a private investor takes title. And Massachusetts saw at least six pieces of legislation introduced last year aimed at ending home equity “theft” in the state.

Those bills, which are still making their way through the Legislature, lay out various requirements and procedures for governments to sell tax-foreclosed properties and send the excess equity, after debts are settled, back to the former property owner.

“The bigger problem I see right now is that the Massachusetts Legislature knows this is unconstitutional. The attorney general knows it’s unconstitutional. The land court knows it’s unconstitutional. And yet nothing can be done until the Legislature acts,” DiPietro said. “The Legislature has had this in front of them for two or three sessions now, and they’ve been unable to write new legislation to resolve this.”

“They’re in a lot of trouble here, and they don’t want to pull the carpet out from under everything too quickly,” he added.

Other State Legislatures Are Moving Past Tyler

While movement in the Massachusetts Legislature has been slow, other states are moving more quickly.

A bill in Arizona that passed a vote in the state’s House of Representatives earlier this year and has now moved to the state’s Senate would create new requirements for distribution of proceeds in connection with sales of properties that governments have taken via tax foreclosure.

In Colorado, the state’s attorney general issued a formal opinion last year finding an unlawful taking will be considered to have occurred if equity is greater than debt when a private investor takes title. Meanwhile, a bill that passed a House vote earlier this year and is moving through the Senate would bring the state in line with the Tyler decision by requiring any excess equity to be returned to the former owner following a sale.

Meanwhile, a bill introduced in the Minnesota Senate last year just weeks before the high court’s decision in Tyler would end the practice of equity “theft” and bring the state in compliance with the ruling.

In Idaho, Gov. Bradley Little in February signed a bill that requires governments to sell a property within a year of acquiring it via tax foreclosure and requires return of surplus equity to the former owner.

Some states have already taken action. In Maine and Nebraska, bills passed last year ended the practice of home equity theft. In Montana, the passage of S.B. 253 in 2019 prohibited home equity “theft” in connection with residential, forest and agricultural properties. North Dakota ended it in 2021 with the passage of H.B. 1199.

“I hope there will be good legislation that comes from the [Tyler] case. I do think that the property tax laws and how local governments conduct [them], they do need to be reformed,” Dougherty said. “Some states are better than others. I do believe there will be significant reforms in more than one state.”

Meanwhile, in New York, lawmakers last year passed a bill that would have put a one-year moratorium on tax foreclosures in place while the state studied the issue of home equity theft, but Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed the measure in December.

Wisconsin, meanwhile, eliminated home equity “theft” in 2022 with S.B. 829, but now a new bill is pending, supported by more than a dozen sponsors, that would provide rules and procedures for how tax sales are conducted and how equity is returned.

“Some states are in compliance with the mechanics, some states are probably in the middle, and some states are not so great,” Dougherty said. “The short answer is, I expect to see a lot from various state legislatures this year. States are going to figure it out legislatively.”

Litigation Continues in a Handful of States

When it comes to legal challenges over the practice, Michigan has been center stage of late, with a handful of cases having already been decided and others moving through the courts.

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that Oakland Could not keep the excess equity when it sold a rental property owned by Uri Rafaeli to make good on delinquent taxes. And in Hall v. Meisner, the Sixth Circuit found in 2022 that Michigan’s tax foreclosure process violated the Fifth Amendment’s takings clause.

“Although I believe that the problem may be limited to certain states and certain jurisdictions, those governmental agencies should immediately audit their past foreclosures to proactively make those impacted whole,” said Keith Poliakoff of Florida-based law firm Government Law Group. “If they fail to do so, I foresee numerous class action cases being filed based on the court’s unambiguous decision.”

The Great Lake State, however, continues to see litigation as plaintiffs hope to ride the momentum of the Tyler and Hall decisions.

In Schafer v. Kent County, the Michigan Supreme Court is set to decide the constitutionality of tax sales by Kent County in 2017 at prices higher than the debt owed by the plaintiffs.

second case before the state’s high court, Hathon v. State, concerns the tax-foreclosed former property of Lynette Hathon, which allegedly had a market value of roughly $67,000 versus roughly $5,000 in debt owed. The state foreclosed on that property in 2018 and sold it at auction for roughly $28,000.

“I expect the Michigan Supreme Court to adopt the holding of Hall. Any cases concerning post-foreclosure auctions that generated proceeds likely should resolve soon after the Supreme Court rules,” said Mark McAlpine of McAlpine PC, who represented the plaintiffs in the Hall case. “Cases where a municipality exercised its right of first refusal prior to a sale are proving more difficult to resolve because the amount of damages can be debated.”

Oakland County, Michigan, filed an amicus brief in the Tyler case in support of Hennepin County.

“In no event should the court federalize state foreclosure proceedings by reshaping a sovereign state’s property rights,” the county argued in its brief.

In Minnesota, meanwhile, a judge is presiding over a pair of cases involving the tax foreclosures and subsequent sale of properties owned by plaintiffs Sharon Sporleder and Darrin Demars.

“It shocks me that there can be a clear constitutional problem and yet nobody’s willing to do anything or resolve it,” DiPietro said. “It just seems like the Supreme Court spoke, and all these courts should just fall in line right now and not be waiting for somebody else to make the decision.”

“I’ve been depressed. I get angry,” DiPietro added.

In Nebraska, the state’s highest court is currently weighing two cases over the issue, including one the U.S. Supreme Court had initially agreed to hear before ultimately remanding it in the weeks after the Tyler ruling.

In the second, the nation’s high court vacated an earlier decision by Nebraska justices that had gone against the homeowners. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the Nebraska Supreme Court to revisit its conclusions in light of Tyler.

“I do expect to see litigation post-Tyler in the last half of 2024,” Dougherty said. “There are going to be huge ramifications in terms of property rights. The Eighth Amendment has been left open. I still think there is more to do on the Fifth Amendment.”

In New Jersey, a judge ruled last year that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Tyler applied to foreclosure proceedings in the state. A second case, Johnson v. City of East Orange, is also moving forward over an $81,000 profit that plaintiff Lynette Johnson alleges the city improperly held onto after seizing her home and selling it.

Those stories, not unlike DiPietro’s, speak to vast differences that still exist between states that allow for home equity “theft” and those that don’t, even after the Tyler decision.

“I’m motivated to do something about this and actually make sure that people know about this and that the thing gets checked, gets changed, because I was angry. I was angry for years at these people in the town,” DiPietro said. “And their position is, ‘We’re just following the law, so don’t be mad at us.’ … That was the thing that always rubbed me the wrong way.”

–Additional reporting by Carolyn Muyskens, Danielle Ferguson, David Holtzman, Charlie Innis and Nate Beck. Graphics by Ben Jay. Editing by Philip Shea.

Have a story idea for Access to Justice? Reach us at accesstojustice@law360.com.