A $10,000 Assessment, No Vote, and a Board Fight: What Villa Medici Means for Orlando Condo Buyers
Owners at an Orlando condominium were billed $5,000 to $10,000 each within months, and a judge has since found the meeting notice violated Florida's 14-day rule. Here is how a special assessment is supposed to work, and what to check before you buy.
Here is a question worth asking before you buy a condominium, and it is not the one most buyers ask: how large a bill can this association hand me without my agreement, and what has to happen first?
An Orlando dispute is currently testing the answer.
What was reported
FOX 35 Orlando reported on June 12, 2026 that owners at the Residences at Villa Medici, a condominium community in Orange County, are seeking the removal of their association's board. Owners told the station they were billed special assessments of roughly $5,000 to $10,000 per unit, due within months, and that no owner vote was taken. The station reported that foreclosure actions were begun against some owners who did not pay.
Two findings from the coverage are worth separating from the rest, because they are matters of record rather than characterization. A judge found that the notice for the assessment meeting violated Florida's requirement that notice be postmarked at least 14 days in advance. And owners reported that association records were not produced despite court orders. FOX 35 also reported reviewing association bank records that showed spending at retailers and restaurants, including Victoria's Secret, Burberry, and Macy's.
The underlying case is a matter of public record: Sanchez Properties Group LLC v. Residences At Villa Medici Condominium Association Inc, filed in Orange County on August 12, 2025.
These are allegations in active litigation, and the association declined to comment to the station. We are not naming any individual board member or manager, and we take no position on what happened. The case is unresolved. What is transferable is the mechanism, because the rules that were allegedly broken here are the rules that protect every condo owner in Florida.
Update since the original coverage: Hoodline reported on September 6, 2026 that a judge has halted collection of the contested assessment while the case proceeds, ordered an independent financial audit, and ordered the association to surrender financial records, with owners' counsel pursuing contempt sanctions and board removal. The board has not been removed and the case has not been decided.
How a special assessment is actually supposed to work
A special assessment is a one-time charge levied on top of regular dues, usually to fund something the reserves cannot cover: a roof, a structural repair, an insurance shortfall, a legal judgment. Florida condominium associations genuinely do have the power to levy them, and a board that never levies one when the building needs work is failing in a different direction. The power is not the problem.
The procedure is the protection, and it is specific.
- Notice. For a meeting at which a special assessment will be considered, the association must give owners written notice that states the nature of the assessment, and Florida law requires that notice be mailed, delivered, or electronically transmitted, and posted, at least 14 days in advance. The postmark matters because it is the objective evidence that the deadline was met.
- The notice has to be honest about what the meeting is for. A notice that presents an assessment as already decided is not notice of a decision to be made. That was among the findings reported here.
- Who votes depends on the documents. This is the part buyers get wrong. In many Florida condominiums the board can approve a special assessment by board vote alone, without an owner referendum. In others the declaration requires owner approval, sometimes by a supermajority. There is no universal answer, and the only place the answer exists is your association's declaration and bylaws.
- Records are open. Owners have a statutory right to inspect official records, including financial records, on written request.
- Collection has limits. An association can lien and ultimately foreclose for unpaid assessments, which is exactly why the notice requirements matter so much. The remedy for a defective process is to challenge the process, and owners who simply stop paying usually add late fees and collection costs to their original problem.
So "the board did this without a vote of the owners" may be entirely lawful in one building and a clear violation in the one next door. That is not a satisfying answer, but it is the true one, and it is precisely why the governing documents are the most important thing you never read.
What this should change about how you buy
The monthly fee is the number on the listing. It is the least informative number available.
Before you close on a Florida condominium:
- Read the declaration on special assessments. Find out, in writing, whether the board can levy one alone and whether there is a cap. Ask your agent or attorney to point you at the exact clause.
- Get the reserve study and the structural integrity reserve schedule. Florida's reserve requirements have made underfunding visible in a way it never used to be. Underfunded reserves are a special assessment that has not been announced yet.
- Ask what has been assessed in the last five years, how large, and whether it is paid off.
- Read the last two years of minutes. Litigation, records disputes, auditor findings, and resignations show up here first.
- Ask for the most recent audited or reviewed financials and who performed them.
- Ask about the delinquency rate and any pending foreclosures. Both tell you about the association's financial health and its enforcement posture at once.
- Ask whether the association is in litigation with its owners. A building where a court is supervising the production of financial records is a materially different purchase from one where it is not.
If you already own in a community levying an assessment
Keep paying while you dispute, if you can. That ordering is not a concession and it protects you.
Then put everything in writing. Request the official records formally and keep the dated request and any response, because a failure to produce records is itself a violation and the paper trail is what makes it provable. Read the notice you received and check the postmark against the meeting date. Talk to your neighbors, because owners acting together have far more weight than owners acting alone, and Florida provides recall procedures for boards. If the amounts are large, this is a point at which a community association attorney is worth the fee.
Why none of this is visible from a listing
There is no registry of which associations are mid assessment, which are under a court order, or which have owners in foreclosure over a disputed bill. Reporting on this community noted that by August 2026 a meaningful share of its active listings were distressed or short sales, which is the kind of signal that only becomes legible after the fact.
That is the gap this site exists to close. The association has a profile on HOAReview, where owners can write about what living there is actually like, including the assessments and the timelines that never reach a listing.
One caution if you go looking, because the name is not unique: separate and unrelated Villa Medici associations exist in Jacksonville and Fort Lauderdale. This post concerns the Orlando community only. You can browse every Florida association or search for your own.
Sources: FOX 35 Orlando, reported by Marie Edinger, June 12, 2026. Read the full article. Subsequent developments via Hoodline, September 6, 2026.