Jose Luis Zapata with 505 North Fort Lauderdale Seashore Boulevard (Orchestra Hotels, Google Maps)
At an oceanfront Hilton-branded condo lodge in Fort Lauderdale Beach, builders Joseph Cabanas and Jose Luis Zapata are allegedly blocking a group of buyers from renting and selling their units, in accordance to court documents and interviews with some of the owners.
It is a unpleasant struggle that’s ignited a sequence of lawsuits above the last two decades in opposition to Q Club Hotel, an entity managed by Cabanas that owns the hotel element at the Q Club Resort and Residences at 505 North Fort Lauderdale Seashore Boulevard. The resort part of the 25-story significant-increase is known as the Hilton Fort Lauderdale Seashore Resort.
Despite the fact that he is not outlined on Q Club Hotel’s company data, Zapata formulated the 350-device developing in 2007, and his development entity specified Cabanas as the resort component’s proprietor consultant, in accordance to court records. The models are a mix of studios, resort suites, and one particular-, two- and three–bedroom condos.
“It has been a nightmare,” explained Barbara Cortopassi, who owns a Q Club unit on the 16th floor. “I have been unable to rent my suite due to the fact they kicked me [out of the hotel program.] People are shelling out out-of-pocket although producing no profits.”
The device homeowners and the issues, including a February lawsuit filed in Broward County Circuit Court docket by the apartment-hotel’s condominium affiliation, allege Q Club Lodge is violating the building’s condominium declaration and principles and restrictions. They claim it is section of an ongoing marketing campaign to punish traders who do not use the resort administration program to handle bookings and hotel visitor expert services.
Cabanas, who heads Doral-based mostly Cabanas Group, and Zapata, direct director of Fort Lauderdale-based Orchestra Accommodations, did not reply to requests for comment. Lawrence Litow, the legal professional for Q Club Resort, also did not answer to mobile phone messages and an electronic mail requesting remark.
Cabanas and Zapata also partnered to build the Conrad Fort Lauderdale Seashore, a financially troubled condominium-lodge project finished in 2017 that was late and about price range. In December 2016, Zapata bought his 51 p.c curiosity in the Conrad to Canada-based mostly Heafey Team and the Pegula family members, owners of the NFL’s Buffalo Expenses. Two several years afterwards, the Heafey-Pegula partnership and the Cabanas entity that owns a 49 % stake in the Conrad, sued each other in Miami-Dade Circuit Courtroom about administration of the rental-resort and alleged breaches of deal. Each sides arrived at a mediated private settlement in 2020, records demonstrate.
At the Q Club assets, Cabanas is manager of the lodge component, according to recent letters he despatched Cortopassi and other unit homeowners. He notified them that they are in violation of Q Club Hotel’s procedures and laws governing who is licensed to enter their condos and the kind of locks they can set up on their device doorways.
In December, Cortopassi and 4 other homeowners employed Port Town Group, an Aventura-primarily based brokerage led by running companion Michael Webster to industry and hire their units for resort stays. Port City is also internet marketing some models for sale.
“My team got concerned for the reason that these private house owners haven’t been equipped to lease their models given that they ended up kicked out of the hotel plan,” Webster claimed. “We took over management of about 10 models. Nonetheless, since [Q Club Hotel] however controls the front desk, if we don’t get their authorization in advance and really do not have a safety escort, we never have accessibility to the models.”
About the final 9 months, Q Club Lodge and Hilton workforce have taken extreme actions to quit him and his staff from entering his clients’ units for showings and typical cleanings and routine maintenance, Webster reported. That has involved threatening them with trespassing, even however he has a electrical power of attorney from his clientele. Last 7 days, the front desk blocked him from employing the elevators, he additional.
According to the rental association’s February lawsuit, Cabanas and Zapata managed the board of administrators from the project’s completion in 2007 until 2020. All through that time the board adopted condo regulations and laws that gave the resort unit entity unilateral control above specific unit owners’ capacity to rent their section-time residences on a limited-phrase basis, the lawsuit states.
In January, even nevertheless personal device owners had considering that taken above the board, Q Club Hotel adopted and is trying to enforce new “unreasonable and unequal regulations” on unit owners who are not in the hotel administration system, the lawsuit states. The condominium association also alleges Q Club is in violation of the building’s condominium declaration.
For occasion, Q Club Resort now calls for the unit proprietors that are not in the lodge system to post names of potential attendees and tenants 15 days in progress of their continue to be for approval by the lodge operator. Everyone keeping in their models simply cannot bypass the front desk, and house owners ought to be current at the time of test-in in purchase for their attendees and tenants to attain accessibility to the residences, the Q Club Hotel’s guidelines and rules doc states. Q Club Lodge also bans non-resort method house owners from using the services of their very own housekeepers to clear their units.
Recently, Q Club Resort handed a new rule prohibiting non-lodge plan homeowners from renting their models for a period of time of a lot less than 60 days.
In a counterclaim to the rental association’s lawsuit, Q Club Hotel promises that the condo declaration “clearly and unambiguously” grants the hotel component owner the authority to put into action restrictions for resort bookings, front desk look at-ins and hotel visitor expert services. Q Club also asserts that its procedures are “reasonable and necessary to guarantee safe and sound and orderly operation of [the condo-hotel],” as well as to stay clear of any confusion that personal models are connected with the Hilton resort part.
In addition, Q Club Resort alleges the association’s new board of directors is “illegally constituted and has lacked the authority to act considering that, at the very least, June 6, 2021, when the board was usurped by poor actors in the condominium.”
Andrew McNeil, an investor who lives in Bangkok and owns seven models, like two with a partner, is on the lookout to lower his losses, but is stuck litigating Q Club Resort more than the sale of the condos.
In February, McNeil and his associate, Nouhad Abou Atallah, sued Q Club Hotel in search of to implement a settlement settlement in a prior complaint necessitating the resort part proprietor to obtain the units. The modern lawsuit accuses Q Club Lodge of refusing to consummate the deals for the reason that the plaintiffs balked at spending the hotel ownership entity more than $85,000 in unexplained “shared costs” when the transactions were being set to shut in January.
“I am sitting down in limbo with my models empty and accruing charges,” McNeil mentioned. “As the litigation dragged on, [Q Club Hotel] held changing the principles a lot more and much more to set far more strain on us.”
