PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Seniors from Lake Clarke Gardens, near Lake Worth Beach, are taking their concerns over the rise in condo costs into their own hands.
Fees that are hitting many of their budgets as condo owners throughout Florida are being forced to pay thousands to cover the costs.
"We gotta show up and make our voices heard," said Gloria Gracia.
She has lived in Lake Clarke Gardens for 10 years and said the rise in fees over assessments and reserves is putting many of the resident's finances at their breaking point.
On Tuesday she invited WPTV's Joel Lopez to meet with her and other residents of the active adult living community, as they voiced their concerns for Gracia to take to Tallahassee when the session starts in March.
"I want to tell other seniors if they're interested come on, because we need to be heard. This is not going away and nobody has a place for us to go, if we lose our homes, where are we going?" said Gracia. "It's a condo crisis, we will be heard."
Gracia said many in her community are on a fixed income and are struggling to get by financially.
"I thought this was going to be my forever home when I retired from up north," said Betty Uveges.
She has lived in Lake Clarke Gardens for over eight years and said her fees went from $293 to $1,150 in less than two years.
She worries she may have to move like many of her neighbors.
"I love it here at Lake Clarke Gardens. It's kept quite beautifully, and we have a lot of amenities, but the cost when you run out of money, you run out of money," said Uveges. "I don't have another place to go."
Gracia said their condo assessment didn't find that their buildings needed any major structural repairs, therefore only needed to go through Phase 1 inspections not Phase 2, which is required after finding issues during the first inspection.
The ask by the group to state leaders is to give condo owners throughout Florida more time to pay off the fees and for condos to be assessed individually before collecting for reserves.
"I think it's very unnecessary to be paying for the future," said Uveges. "When this is the present and many people have to leave here, because they did not have the money to continue on living here and that's sad."
Gracia said Lake Clarke Gardens' reserve is about 90% funded and would like collection to be paused until there's an a current need for repairs.
"The message is we gotta look after our senior population," said Palm Beach County District 3 Commissioner Joel Flores.
WPTV invited Flores along to meet with Lake Clarke Gardens residents to see if there's any help he can provide at a county level.
"We got to come together and work at a state level with the insurance and make some of these assessment fees bearable," said Flores. "If you're going to insist on making these requirements then we should have a way to help these people to make sure they don't lose their homes.
Flores said the county is looking at options that may be in the form of a fund for people that need help navigating through the condo fees.
The challenge he said is there's no total on just how much money is needed to help get all area condo buildings up to code.
"I know that we're doing it for the safety but at the end of the day but if these people can't afford to live in their own homes, who is going to take care of them?" said Flores.
Flores said a misconception that residents need to analyze that's happening right now with condos is if the fees are for structural damage versus current maintenance that needs to happen.
"These are two very different things, what we at the state and at the county level what we are looking at is structural damage," said Flores. "Making sure that these buildings are save to be lived (in) and not whether it's paint or routine maintenance."
He said because Lake Clarke Gardens passed their Phase 1 inspection they won't be required to undergo another inspection for 10 years.
