The Florida Statutes are crystal clear regarding a homeowner's right to inspect Association records. Florida Statute 720.303 defines Association records, requires that the Association maintain these records and gives every homeowner the right to inspect these records. With very few exceptions, this statute makes accessible to each and every homeowner virtually EVERY record related to the operation of the Association.

Many homeowners ERRONEOUSLY believe that records PROTECTED by lawyer-client and work-product privileges CANNOT be inspected by homeowners. This is absolutely FALSE.

Florida Statute 720.303 [see Section (5)(c)1.] grants homeowners the statutory right to inspect records PROTECTED by the lawyer-client privilege and any record PROTECTED by the work-product privilege as long as these records are NOT part of current or imminent civil or criminal litigation or current or imminent adversarial adminstrative proceedings. Inspection of records PROTECTED by lawyer-client and work-product privileges that ARE part of current or imminent litigation or proceedings must be made available to homeowners to inspect at the conclusion of such litigation or proceedings.

Given the above, there is absolutely NO valid reason why Baywinds should incur legal costs with respect to the vast majority of homeowner requests to inspect our records. Unfortunately, Baywinds has chosen to submit most, if not all, homeowner requests to inspect Baywinds records to its attorney, Mr. Krivok. This has resulted in many thousands of dollars of precious Baywinds funds being wasted (e.g., click here to read about one example that took a year and a lawsuit to resolve and cost Baywinds $3,000 to $4,000.).

The following table includes the legal fees for other homeowner record inspection requests.