Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
Take It To The Board with Donna DiMaggio Berger
Beyond Condos --The Cooperative Ownership Model, with Becker’s David Rogel
Condominiums and HOAs may dominate Florida's shared ownership landscape, but cooperative associations offer a fascinating alternative with their own distinct legal framework and operational quirks. This week, Board-certified community association attorney and Becker shareholder David Rogel joins Take It To The Board host Donna DiMaggio Berger to unravel the mysteries of this older form of shared ownership that continues to house Floridians in everything from high-rises to single-family homes.
At its core, understanding cooperatives requires grasping their fundamental difference from condominiums: in co-ops, the association owns the entire property, while residents own shares in the corporation with exclusive use rights to their units. This structure creates unique dynamics in financing, governance, and property transactions that directly impact property values and owner rights.
Donna and David navigate the evolution of cooperative law, explaining how these communities—many established in the 1950s and 1960s—operate under bylaws and articles of incorporation rather than declarations. They dispel common misconceptions, including the notion that Florida cooperative boards have unlimited discretion to reject potential buyers, a practice more commonly associated with New York City co-ops.
For those curious about conversion options, Donna and David outline the process of transforming a cooperative into a condominium, a trend gaining momentum as owners seek to increase property values despite the potential for higher property taxes. They also address the unique challenges of cooperative terminations, which lack the statutory framework available to condominiums.
Whether you're a cooperative resident wondering about your property rights, a board member navigating governance questions, or simply curious about alternative forms of community living, this episode provides valuable insights into a housing model that has served Floridians for generations and continues to evolve alongside its more prevalent condominium counterpart.
Conversation Highlights Include:
- Typical governing documents for a cooperative
- Different types of housing that can be used for a cooperative (e.g., vertical construction, mobile home, single-family homes)
- Legal implications of being a shareholder vs. unit owner
- Biggest misconceptions about co-ops
- Cooperatives and cash-only sales
- Why developers stopped using the cooperative form of ownership in Florida
- Process of converting cooperatives to a condominium form of ownership
- Procedural and Substantive differences in Chapter 718 and Chapter 719 of Florida Statutes
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Hi everyone, I'm attorney Donna DiMaggio-Berger, and this is Take it to the Board where we speak condo and HOA. Condos and HOAs may dominate the Florida landscape, but there's another form of shared ownership that comes with its own unique set of rules, challenges and, dare I say, quirks. Cooperative associations, or co-ops, aren't nearly as common in Florida as their condo counterparts, but for those who live in them, the experience can be very different. From shareholder rights to board dynamics and financial structuring, co-ops bring a distinct flavor to community living. Joining me today to demystify cooperative associations is my law partner, david Rogel. David is a board-certified community association attorney who knows the ins and outs of Florida cooperative governance, and he's here to break down how they operate, what makes them different from condos, why some of them may want to convert to a condominium form of ownership, and what challenges boards and residents face. Whether you're a shareholder in a co-op or just curious about how they work, this episode's for you. So, david, welcome to Take it to the Board.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Donna.
Speaker 1:For those people who are listening, who are unfamiliar with co-ops, let's just start with the basics. So how do they differ from condos and HOAs in terms of ownership and governance?
Speaker 2:Well, I think the really primary difference, donna, is the way they're owned. A condominium has units which are individually owned by owners. A homeowners association has parcels which are individually owned by homeowners Co-ops. The units are not individually owned by the homeowner, they're owned by the cooperative association. So the entire building or the entire piece of property, if it's a land cooperative is owned by the association and the association is essentially the owner for almost all purposes and governs the property differently because of that.
Speaker 1:Do you think there's any insecurity, feelings of insecurity, that you don't own it? You own a. You know you're a leaseholder as opposed to an owner.
Speaker 2:There's absolutely insecurity, and for good reason. You know co-ops existed before condominiums. In many cases the co-ops that anybody might live in today especially in Florida but throughout the country are some of the oldest form of multifamily ownership that exists. Certainly in Florida they existed before condominiums and the condominium law. So in Florida we see a lot of cooperatives that were created in the 50s and the 60s and it's quite a bit of a different animal. But one of the reasons why people feel perhaps a little concerned over the condominium form of ownership is, in essence, they don't own their cooperative unit.
Speaker 2:Now, recently changes have occurred that make things a little bit better. Florida law has been clarified so that it's understood that if you own a cooperative unit and I say the word own in kind of air parentheses the fact is you do own an interest in real property. Before that really the law and there were two kinds of law that impacted this the law really didn't recognize that you owned anything and that the co-op owned everything. The two areas where that exists is taxation and homestead rights, or when you have the right of use of a cooperative unit and that's really what you have, you have a use right in the cooperative unit in common with all the rights of other owners in the common area. But it now makes it clear that that's a real property interest. So that's good for homestead purposes and good for taxation purposes.
Speaker 1:Why don't you hit on that point? Because I wanted to ask you. So. I have a few cooperative clients as well. I know you do, because that's why I asked you to come on the podcast and talk about them. There's typically that language, david, in the bylaws, which says you know what, if you're doing things wrong, you don't pay your assessments or you're not following the rules, we can terminate your lease and you're out of here. And I know I always have to explain to them. It's not that simple. You're going to have to go through a regular foreclosure process to actually take away the real property rights this owner has.
Speaker 2:That's true Absolutely, and that's been the way it is since Chapter 719 Florida statutes was created and essentially started traveling with this very similar language to what condominium associations deal with, both in terms of collection of unpaid assessments and other things. You can't just take people's rights away. Now cooperatives are again a different animal, and so, while the process of foreclosure on liens and collection of assessments is fairly similar, there are a lot of differences between even the co-op laws and condominium laws.
Speaker 1:Step back, because I kind of jumped ahead.
Speaker 2:I was referencing what's in the bylaws.
Speaker 1:What are the typical governing documents for a cooperative?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, that's the other area as to where a cooperative is different from condominiums and HOAs. A condominium or a homeowners association will have a declaration, whether it's a declaration of condominium or a declaration of covenants. Cooperative associations don't. They typically are a corporation and because they own all the real property, they are the master in control of the use rights which would typically be limited by a declaration of covenants or condominium. Here the only typical governing documents are the bylaws and articles of incorporation of the cooperative association.
Speaker 2:Now there are other documents that we consider governing documents, but those are the two main corporate governing documents. Many cases not recorded like a declaration of condominium or a declaration of covenants would be, and in many cases, because a lot of these co-ops are 60 years old or older, those documents aren't always as clear and written in a way that, as lawyers, I'm certain that we feel comfortable with them In cases. So when we get these kinds of documents from our clients, especially new ones, they're illegible. So it's kind of a funny thing, but funny, ha ha, funny, unusual, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:Well, we talk about, you know, a lot of times with condos and HOAs and we're talking to volunteer board members, they'll use the catch-all phrase, the bylaws. But that means something quite different for a condo, a HOA. When we're talking about a cooperative, the bylaws really contain the meat of the use restrictions and everything else, and we don't really have that same order of priority, david, do we? I mean, if you're looking to amend use restrictions in a cooperative, it's going to go in the bylaws, or you haven't mentioned proprietary leases yet.
Speaker 2:Right. So again, the difference in a co-op, you don't have a deed to your unit. What you have is what the law calls and I always like to use the term because it makes people go what it's called a muniment of title. That's what the law calls it. So it's different in different places. You spoke out about a proprietary lease and that would be the typical agreement, if you will, that someone gets when they buy an interest in a cooperative association or in a cooperative. But there are other instruments, membership agreements, what have you? All these things stand for one proposition you have an exclusive use right to your cooperative unit and there are certain things within those proprietary leases, occupancy agreements and other similar instruments which provide certain rights and responsibilities, including the carrying charges. Again, in the old documents they call them carrying charges, we call them assessments and that's how they're treated. Assessments are levied just like in a condo or an HOA, to manage and operate the property and to take care of all the things that need to be done in a cooperative, just like in a condominium.
Speaker 1:You know, in some of my cooperative communities there's really been longevity on the board, david. I mean people have been there for decades so they've kind of kept their operations consistent throughout the years. And I want to reference the issuance of shares or certificates, because in some of those older communities they still do it the way the developer set it up. In others they've kind of dropped off. In your experience, do they typically issue shares still?
Speaker 2:to this day Not well, however, it began is how it goes on now. Now, back in the 50s and the 60s, the difference between a for-profit and a not-for-profit corporation under Florida law was a bit more gray. So I have had clients come to me and go. They have us listed as a this and we should be a that. So there is not always, there are not always shares. But again, in the typical old cooperative, again you bought shares in the cooperative association and, just like shares that you buy in a public or privately traded corporation, you bought shares and you had a number of shares and many times I own 3.5 shares in the corporation. Shares of stock are specifically for for-profit corporations. Not for-profit corporations, which is what most community associations are, do not issue shares. But that doesn't mean that there weren't some form of measurement of ownership in the terms of membership certificates and whatnot. But it's not always a situation where you own shares of stock. I might add. They're not always Florida corporations.
Speaker 2:I have had a couple of cooperative associations that anybody who deals in corporations and whatnot will not be surprised. They were Delaware corporations and Delaware law is significantly different than Florida law in terms of corporate governance and in history a lot of corporations were incorporated in Delaware for various business reasons. Corporations were incorporated in Delaware for various business reasons but for those same reasons these cooperative associations were found and set up in Delaware. We typically, when we see that, we typically recommend that our clients actually convert their corporate status to a Florida corporation and get out of Delaware. Among other things, it's very expensive to maintain your status in Delaware. You have to have a Delaware registered agent and a Delaware attorney and a lot of money to Delaware where in Florida maintaining your corporate status is not nearly as expensive. But again, whether they have shares of stock or some other basis on which they own their interest in the corporation, it's tantamount to shares of stock.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that's one of the main differences as well is that whenever there's a conveyance of property in a cooperative, the cooperative association gets a lot more involved in that conveyance than you would in a condo or an HOA Condo or HOA. The interaction and the transaction between the seller and the purchaser it's done. I mean, they don't ask the association typically to weigh in on the warranty deed. Sometimes they do if there's an impertinent storage space or an impertinent parking space. But for the co-ops, I find a lot of times there's an you know if there's an impertinent storage space or an impertinent parking space. But for the co-ops, I find a lot of times there's a lot of confusion with closing agents in terms of the occupancy agreement, the issuance of stock if they actually do issue shares the proprietary lease, all of that and the approval.
Speaker 2:Yeah, again, because of the way they're set up, there can be confusion, although, again, less and less. I find nowadays that most real estate lawyers do understand the difference and do understand what's going on to a great extent to mortgages used to be that you could not get any financing when you were buying a cooperative unit and now you can. It's kind of been a bit of a bell curve. It's actually we're seeing less and less financing of cooperatives because banks again don't understand it completely. In many cases we'll want the association to subordinate all of its interests to those of the lender, and cooperative associations don't need to do that and to a certain extent that scares financing away.
Speaker 2:This is one of the reasons why in my world, or in our world, we see that the typical cooperative unit is worth less than the typical condominium unit because of the legal certainties that exist in condominium law and governance and the lack of those certainties. Banks don't get involved as much and, generally speaking, just the value for the square foot of a unit is less. And so we see these days I have recently handled a couple of cooperative conversions, if you will, to condominiums, and it can be done. It's a convoluted process but in the end. Switching from co-op to condo increases the value of the units, and so that's something that I do see some cooperative associations looking into. Now. The yin with the yang is that while the value of units increases, that means real property taxes on that valuation also increase. So there's things to be considered on both sides of that equation.
Speaker 1:I want to ask you, in a few minutes, to walk us through that conversion process, but it's funny because I'm listening to you talk about the difference in value between maybe the same size condo unit, maybe, versus a co-op. If you really dug into it, though and in terms of the differences in the statute I'm thinking about insurance it may not make much sense why the condo unit would be valued higher, because there have been some benefits to cooperatives being under the radar. But this kind of segues nicely into what are some of the misperceptions people have about cooperatives, because that could be also a factor in the devaluation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really don't know how to answer that, donna, because again the misperceptions of the past tend to be going away. Insurance is one of know one of those things, although again co-op laws. It relates to these new reserves and things like that pretty much the same thing as condos. On the other hand, insurance is not as regulated in co-ops. Now, that may be good and that may be bad because, again, while condominiums are regulated and have requirements to get certain kinds of now extremely expensive insurance, co-ops don't. But they typically get it anyway. So you know, the same expense burden exists in a co-op as in a condo for things like insurance. Otherwise, you know, the misperceptions may be because you and I deal with it all the time it's not as clear that there is any misperception anymore.
Speaker 2:But I certainly think that there's a place in the world for co-ops and you know, again, in other jurisdictions co-op ownership is far more prevalent than condominium ownership. Condominium ownership Talk about New York City and a lot of areas like that, where vertical development existed before condominiums existed and therefore they were co-ops and that's how it works. I expect that, while the power of a cooperative may be similar to that of a condo, here co-op boards can probably get away with a little bit more than a condo board can, because, again, the co-op owns the building and so share rights are a little bit different than unit owner rights, and that's where that difference comes in.
Speaker 1:And I've stumbled across that misperception, David, with some cooperative boards down here who think they have an unfettered right to disapprove applicants for purchase or for lease. I think that comes out of the stories in the 80s and 90s. I think Madonna and other celebrities were turned down by their New York cooperative board because they just felt they would, you know, the paparazzi would be too much of a nuisance to have them in the building. I have had Florida cooperatives say to me well, we can, you know, pretty much turn down anybody, and the answer is no, you can't. And that's to me one of the big misperceptions among some Florida cooperatives. It could be a misperception among some potential purchasers as well who don't understand that Florida cooperatives just don't have that same level of discretion.
Speaker 2:I don't think they do, even though the documents might suggest otherwise. Although I don't know why anybody would turn down Madonna, I did see an interesting episode of Frasier once and it involved a New York cooperative. So you know I expect that they're different up there and down here. I would follow pretty much the same reasonableness anti-discriminatory type provisions that you would in any condo review of any condo purchase.
Speaker 1:Are you watching the show?
Speaker 2:Only Murders in the Building it's a New York City cooperative On and off and that's a co-op I would not want to live in.
Speaker 1:Oh well, you know, I mean it sounds exciting. I mean you've got Steve Martin, martin Short, selena. I mean I actually tried to get the showrunner, Jonathan Hoffman, on the podcast.
Speaker 2:That would have been fun.
Speaker 1:That would have been fun, because I do enjoy that show. Well, we've been. You know, listen. When I think about cooperatives, I normally just think of vertical construction.
Speaker 2:David right Like is it the?
Speaker 1:Arconia. I think that's the name of the co-op in that show. Arconia, I think that's the name of the co-op in that show. So that's, I think, in my mind, in many people's mind. When you're talking about cooperative lifestyle, you're talking about vertical construction, a multifamily building, but there's a host of other housing options right that can fit within a cooperative association.
Speaker 2:Well, and anything that can exist in the framework that we discussed earlier can certainly be a co-op, a piece of real property that's and I use the term subdivided again in air quotes, because you can't really you're not really subdividing the property, but you know lots in what would typically look like a homeowner's association could, in fact, the entire area could be owned by an association and people could have lots land, lots in a cooperative association, subject to the same leasing or other rights that we talk about for a high-rise building.
Speaker 1:What mobile homes too.
Speaker 2:Mobile homes? Yes, absolutely. There are many cooperative mobile homes. I don't represent any, and mobile homes is a whole different category. It really is because there are multiple laws that impact mobile homes Cooperative law might, mobile home law might, regular corporate law might and it gets very confusing. So again, certainly I know that there are a number of them and we have one that is a condominium now that used to be a mobile home cooperative.
Speaker 1:I was asked to come out to a potential new client community last year. I drove up it looked like a typical homeowners association single family homes. Turned out it was a cooperative association. The association, david, owned all the homes, the underlying real property, the homes it was like stuck in the 1950s and the website still had that every home would come with a brand new RCA color television.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:I've rendered you speechless. No, I mean, it was really interesting to me. The Cooperative Association owned all of these lots and all of these single family homes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and all of these single family homes, yeah, and I'm dealing with a situation now where we're recreating something that looked like and was a mobile home park at one time and now looks more like what you're talking about, and there is discussion about whether the association which owns the land actually owns what's on top of it. So I'm not really sure you know whether an improvement we as semi-real estate lawyers, believe that anything affixed to the real property is owned by the owner of the real property and in the case you're discussing, would be the co-op. But again, it depends greatly on, you know, a number of factors, Of course, if it's a stick-built home versus a mobile home or a modular home, which you know may ultimately maintain some sort of personal property or other property status that's owned by the person who built it or lives in it versus the land itself Very complicated area built it or lives in it versus the land itself Very complicated area. Obviously something that we don't see much, but I'm certainly dealing with it right now.
Speaker 1:Do you have any clients that require cash only sales?
Speaker 2:No, I had. Over my years of practice I did have some that suggested that. You know we don't do financing, but the places that I represent are all currently at least in the 20th century, if not the 21st, and want to make sure that people can buy and sell freely, and that obviously includes the ability to get financing for a purchase or a sale.
Speaker 1:You're right. It definitely narrows the pool of eligible purchasers. The upside is you don't have to worry about foreclosing because there's full equity in the units, sure, sure. So we have both mentioned that cooperatives are the oldest housing stock in Florida and you, just a minute ago, mentioned how they are much more popular in the Northeast New York City in particular. Why do you think I mean developers just stopped building these things? When's the last time you've ever heard of a cooperative being built in Florida?
Speaker 2:Well, again, it's not really that they stopped building them. They continued building buildings. Co-op buildings look like condo buildings. There's condominium law now and therefore that's what's being built are condominiums. The building is built and it becomes something. They become condominiums. Now, I might add, in New York as well. You know newer buildings or condominium buildings in New York, cooperatives. Just, you know they existed back then because that's all there was. Now there's a condominium form of ownership. That's what really developers are building.
Speaker 1:So walk us through the conversion process. Cooperative comes to you and they say you know what we want to convert? To be a condo. What's the process?
Speaker 2:Well, you have to create a set of condo docs. You have to understand what that particular building's needs are. Not all condo buildings and condo docs are the same, as you well know. But once you have the form of ownership and you have to get a title company involved, because people, when they acquire a unit in a condominium, will want to acquire a marketable title. So a title company will walk us through the things that are necessary. Again, it usually ultimately requires everybody to agree. But, unlike a lot of other things that you'd get a vote on and get people to agree on, converting to condominiums a little bit easier to get everybody's approval because in the end, instead of having some less than clear interest in a corporation that owns all the property, everybody will own their own unit. So the process leads to a point where a closing occurs and somebody is acquiring their unit and they're going to get a deed from the cooperative association and in signing off on that deed they're agreeing to be a condominium rather than a cooperative. I've had several that you know. Again, while some people might not understand it completely, in the end they sign off on it because again, they're getting a more valuable interest in real property than in a cooperative.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot of little things. There's certainly a lot of little things that have to go on, including all the real estate transactions for each unit, including surveys, because, again, a cooperative doesn't the cooperative documents, condo docs always have surveys. Why? Because, in order to know what you own, there has to be a survey showing your unit, and in a cooperative that's not the case. So the survey has to be created that will show everybody's unit, show the common areas, show all the easements and things like that. So those are all things that have to be considered when you do a conversion. But more and more you're seeing less cooperatives, because even the cooperatives that do exist are converting to condominium ownership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can imagine that the first sales post-conversion may include a little bit of a challenge for the closing agent. Once you get past that initial sale after conversion, you're probably fine. Just the first one after you converted to condo.
Speaker 2:Well, I can tell you, in the two that I've dealt with recently, we've had nothing but positive.
Speaker 1:So I said a few minutes ago that cooperatives have somewhat flown under the radar in terms of the Florida legislature. And, yeah, for CSRS, the Structural Integrity Reserve Study and the milestone inspections, they hit 719 with that. But can you talk about some of the major differences between the Condominium Act in Florida, which is 718, and the Cooperative Act, which is 719?
Speaker 2:There aren't many Really. Again, in recent times the legislature when it's been adopting changes to 718, they've always seemed to adopt the same changes for 719. And when they're doing that I think they pick up on things that don't exist there and put them in. Insurance is the main one that I brought up earlier. They really haven't hit on the requirements for insurance like in condominiums, and the cooperative documents typically don't much do that either. But that's really the main difference Collections, foreclosures, governance, changing the common property, alterations that we see in condominiums.
Speaker 2:There's sections there may be a little bit different organization, maybe a little less organization. Sometimes you have to really pick and choose and find them. One area of course is termination, and again we see now a lot of condominium associations facing older condos, facing the potential of the sale of the building, and cooperatives don't have a provision in the law, like condominiums do, for the sale of the cooperative property. So that's another major area and that's a bit of a head-scratcher as well. I've got a couple of places now that developers are interested in buying out that are cooperatives and again you have to deal with that sort of thing differently in a cooperative because not only is the property going to be sold, but the interests of the owners in their exclusive use rights, which are completely separate from the ownership, have to be dealt with.
Speaker 1:I wanted to ask you that. Let me give you a scenario because you're right, there's no statutory protection baked into 719 like there is in 718, where there's an approval threshold per the statute. Let's say your governing doctor, let's say your bylaws, your cooperative bylaws say with two thirds approval of the shareholders, the cooperative association may sell the property to a developer. And again, this is old housing stock in Florida and it's usually in very prime locations around the coast. But let's say all of our owners have proprietary leases, do you?
Speaker 1:go into two-thirds or can they get to? I think they have a real. I think the developer is going to have a title problem if they don't get 100% approval.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, listen, even in condominium terminations and even using the condominium statute, which suggests you don't need 100%, you always ultimately need 100%. But again, when you deal with that, you're dealing with title issues and what do you end up with? You end up with what the title insurance company says you're going to need. So, yes, I don't think just because the co-op documents say the cooperative can be sold for that. Well, let me say this I think it can be and I think that if you get that vote, the cooperative association can sell the cooperative property.
Speaker 2:The question is is does the person buying it, can they go off and run them up? And the answer is no. They're going to need to dot the I's and cross the T's that the title company looks at. The other problem with cooperative sales the sale of the entire cooperative property, which obviously is a very deep and interesting conversation for those folks who like taxes there's a significant difference in what happens when you sell cooperative property, because the property is corporate property and so if you're selling the property, there are all sorts of corporate taxes and a lot of issues relating to how much people have to pay in terms of both taxes individual taxes on the sale of their unit interest but on the sale of the corporate property. So there's a lot of things that are a little bit different in cooperatives than there are in condominiums.
Speaker 1:The dreaded double taxation factor.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:The cooperative property and, to your point, I think there are developers that are more comfortable with the risks associated with less than 100% approval, others that that's going to be a deal breaker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but again, typically if it's a good deal, you end up getting everybody, and that's the only way it really ultimately happens in all of these settings. So not much of a difference, but there is a different path to follow.
Speaker 1:So we can't have this conversation on cooperatives without talking about the long-term land leases. Most of these cooperatives did have long-term underlying land leases at least in my experience. Has that been your experience as well?
Speaker 2:Not at all. Actually, what they had was government, us government-backed mortgages. A lot of these places were set up as I don't know that I want to call it affordable housing, but it was set up for housing by the federal government's financing and they had mortgages on the property. And you know, I know from what you talk about. I don't know that I had any cooperatives that had land leases. But for cooperatives and condos that had land leases, you know there was the day you burned the lease because you finally got out of it Well with all of you know there was the day you burned the lease because you finally got out of it Well with all of my clients. It was the day they burned the mortgage and the federal government was.
Speaker 2:Typically, when these things were set up, there were two classes of shares. There was class A and class B shares and class A shares were the federal government Until that mortgage was satisfied. Those Class A shares controlled a lot. But once the mortgage goes away, the Class A shares go away, then everybody's the same in terms of share ownership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, these long-term land leases or recreational leases, they could be found in condominium projects as well. I really thought, David, that over the last few years, with the heightened obligations related to reserve funding and engineering inspections, potential liability for the condition of the property, that we'd see more of these lessors opening up to a purchase by the associations. That hasn't happened and it's really surprising to me. It is and it isn't because I guess for a lot of them because a lot of them it's heirs and successors it's like an annuity, the long-term lease for them.
Speaker 2:It's better than an annuity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it is so. I mean, but I would have thought that there would have been a factoring in of the potential liability of continuing to be the real property owner and whether or not the association is maintaining that property.
Speaker 2:Right? Well, maybe yes, maybe no, because in the end, if somebody were to reacquire the leasehold property or take it back, or what have you, they're going to redevelop it Whatever existed 30, 40 years ago, they don't want that anymore. So nobody does 50, 60, even 70 years ago.
Speaker 1:So one of our partners told me I didn't know this that you were a prosecutor years ago. So I have to ask you any lessons that stuck from your time in the state attorney's office that I don't know shaped or informed your association practice.
Speaker 2:Well, don't break the law.
Speaker 1:That's a good starting point.
Speaker 2:Right, right, yeah, no, I mean, you know that's a whole different area of law and it was certainly something that was very enjoyable back in the day for me to do, but I don't know that any of this informs my my current practice, other than when I want to impress somebody.
Speaker 1:What kind of cases did you? Did you try A?
Speaker 2:to Z thefts from the local drugstore on Miami Beach, which, incidentally, was the only time I was on 60 Minutes all the way up to murder. So I handled it all over the few years that I did that.
Speaker 1:I just watched the latest OJ documentary on Netflix with all the evidence that wasn't presented at trial and I mean, you know, you think you've heard it all and then they come up with something new and it really kind of did transport me back. The verdict came out on my son Ryan's birthday, but what's?
Speaker 2:one of the most memorable.
Speaker 1:You said A to Z but do you have one particular case that when you're, you know at a party and somebody asks you about your time as a prosecutor it's certainly Mama Steals Drugs from FedEx.
Speaker 2:It's certainly mama steals drugs from FedEx, the Fedco drugstore on Miami Beach. Me, the judge, the public defender, if there was one, I don't recall. But I'll never forget my little 15 minutes of fame on 60 Minutes where they were investigating, you know the many routine arrests of old people who were stealing from the Fedco drugstore on my in Miami Beach, on Alton Road. And it was a thing, a sad thing, because again, and at that time it involved, you know, folks who maybe didn't have money, but you know there was, there was a lot of just kleptomania as well.
Speaker 1:So were they stealing food or?
Speaker 2:other. No, you name it, they stole it. You know personal items, things like that Candy, you name it, it was. It was a lot of stuff and and and you know I was you know at the time I was became good friends with all the people in that in that area, south Miami Beach, judge Gersten, who was the judge over there at the time, and you know it was a kick for us for them to come in and film that sort of thing. So you know it was a lot of fun and that's certainly the one thing that sticks in my mind, that and, of course, working with Janet Reno, who was an amazing force of a human being.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that must have been something. You probably got some stories to tell. You also have a big practice down in the Keys. How did you get a presence in the Keys?
Speaker 2:Well, I just like the Florida Keys and they like me.
Speaker 1:Are you a fisherman? Were you down there fishing? No?
Speaker 2:I'm more of a diver than a fisherman. But you know, one day, when I get a boat again, I'll be fishing as well as diving.
Speaker 1:All right, Well listen, David. Thank you so much for your time today. This has been truly enjoyable, yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Donna.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us today. Don't forget to follow and rate us on your favorite podcast platform, or visit TakeItToTheBoardcom for more ways to connect.