Coral Gables Attorney

Why Coral Gables Clients Choose Arturo R. Alfonso

What Is Different About Legal Matters in Coral Gables

Buying or renovating a home. Coral Gables runs its own design review. Exterior work such as windows, doors, fences, driveways, paint, and additions generally needs Board of Architects approval before the city’s Building Division reviews the permit, and a local historic landmark or a property in a historic district generally needs a Certificate of Appropriateness before exterior work begins. Before you close, it is worth checking the city’s records for historic designation and for open or expired permits. Our guides to fixing common title defects and as-is purchase contracts explain how problems found late in a deal are handled.

Older homes, longer paper trails. A historic Gables home can carry decades of recorded deeds and mortgages, and a title search can turn up an old gap in the chain of title, such as an unreleased mortgage or a missing heir’s signature. Most defects are cured by agreement or a corrective document; one that cannot be cured that way may need a quiet title action in circuit court, explained in quiet title actions in Miami. When the fix is a new or corrective deed, the steps are described in deed preparation and transfers. Selling instead? Florida sellers must disclose known defects that materially affect value and are not readily observable to the buyer, along with the statutory notices covered in what a Florida seller must disclose.

Older buildings are recertified through the City. Section 8-11(f) of the Miami-Dade County Code requires the owner of a building that has been in existence for 30 years or longer to have its structure and electrical systems inspected and the building recertified, and then again every 10 years. In Coral Gables, the City’s Building Division administers the program and mails the notices of required recertification. Single-family residences, duplexes, and minor structures (an occupant load of 10 or less and 2,000 square feet or less) are exempt, so the rule matters most to buyers and owners of Gables condominium units, apartment buildings, and commercial property. The City says a building that is not recertified is deemed unsafe and goes before the Construction Regulation Board, which can bring administrative fees and other penalties. If you are buying into an older Gables building, ask for its recertification status along with the association’s records. Condominium buildings of three or more habitable stories also have the separate state inspection explained in condo milestone inspections and SIRS.

A City code ticket has its own deadline. Code Enforcement, a division of the City’s Development Services Department, issues warnings, notices of violation, and civil citations (tickets). The City says a hearing on a ticket must be requested within 21 days of the violation date, or fines may be assessed. Ticket hearings are held before a magistrate the City retains; other cases can go before the Code Enforcement Board, a panel of appointed City representatives, where the code officer and the owner each present evidence. The City also says unpaid fines or open cases may result in a lien against the property and could affect a resale, so a buyer should ask about open code cases along with the title search, as described in how liens affect selling a home. A violation letter from a condominium or homeowners’ association is a separate matter with its own notice and hearing rules, covered in condo and HOA disputes in Miami.

Homestead and bankruptcy. Because Coral Gables is a municipality, Florida’s constitutional homestead exemption protects a Gables home on up to one-half acre of contiguous land (Florida Constitution, Article X, section 4(a)(1)); outside a city the limit is 160 acres. There is no dollar cap on the protected equity, subject to the federal timing rules explained in our guide to keeping your house in bankruptcy.

A Clerk’s courthouse in the Gables. The Miami-Dade Clerk’s Coral Gables District Court is at 3100 Ponce de Leon Boulevard, open Monday to Friday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The Clerk lists county civil court, small claims, landlord-tenant disputes, domestic violence intake, and marriage licenses among the matters handled there, so a Gables landlord or tenant, or someone seeking protection from a family member, may deal with this location rather than a downtown courthouse. Our guides to the Florida eviction process, how we represent landlords and tenants, and getting a domestic violence injunction explain those cases.

Family cases. A Coral Gables divorce, custody, or support case is filed in the Family Division of the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, the court that hears family cases for all of Miami-Dade County. Whether you will need to appear in person is covered in our guide to going to court for a divorce.