On Jan. 30, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Michael Hanzman issued an “Order on “Associations’ Motion for Summary Judgment on Condominium Act Claims (Argument I)” in the case styled Central Carillon Beach Condominium Association, North Carillon Beach Condominium Association and South Carillon Beach Condominium Association v. Carillon Hotel and Z Capital Partners. The case, a continuation of years of vicious litigation warfare between (and sometimes among) the plaintiffs and the defendants, has culminated in a court decision that could wreak havoc on the hundreds of “mixed-use” developments built beginning in the mid-2000s.

The Carillon property, located at Collins Avenue and 68th Street in Miami Beach, (known for many years as Canyon Ranch until that company departed the property) originally was the Carillon Hotel constructed in 1958. The property was redeveloped as a mixed-use property in 2007, refurbishing the hotel and constructing two additional condominium towers on the property. The developer, WSG Development Co., lost the property to its lender, Lehman Brothers, which eventually sold it in a bankruptcy sale in 2014 to Z Capital Partners LLC. The Carillon property consists of five “lots”—the three “condominium lots,” the “retail lot” and the “hotel lot.” In 2007, the developer recorded the “declaration of covenants, restrictions and easements for Carillon Hotel and Spa (the Carillon declaration), which set out operating covenants for the five lots. Similar to many multi-use declarations of the mid-2000s, it delineated what parts of the property would be dedicated to the condominium form of ownership and what parts of the property would be owned by a third party, typically a hotel brand or an investor. The three condominiums were created by separate declarations of condominium (the condominium declarations). Each condominium declaration contained a description of the condominium’s common elements which, as it turns out, are elusive to identify.