Condominiums and Conflicts of Interest: How to interpret the rebuttable presumption (FL)

The legislature recently amended Chapter 718 of the Florida Statues, relating to condominiums, to create a rebuttable presumption that a conflict of interest exist in certain situations.[1] A conflict of interest is a real or seeming incompatibility between one’s private interests and one’s public or fiduciary duties. Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014). For example, if a board member owns a landscaping company that provides services to an association, the board member’s private interest in obtaining a profit may be incompatible with the board member’s fiduciary obligation to choose a landscaping company that will provide the best service at the lowest price. If there is a rebuttable presumption of a conflict of interest, a court would start with the presumption that the relationship creates a conflict and the contracting entity or the officer or director would need to prove that the relationship does not, in fact, create a conflict of interest. If there is no rebuttable presumption, an officer or director may still have a conflict of interest, but the party challenging the contract or seeking to remove the board member would need to prove that a conflict exists.     Read the article………………