
Start With a Free* Consultation – (904) 355-7000
With all the added security concerns evolving today, it’s not surprising that many developers, builders, and land use architects are designing private neighborhoods and planned communities as private associations with property owner covenants and restrictions. Many of these planned communities, subdivisions, or neighborhoods are without gated security structures but still retain all the characteristics of being governed by an organization or association. These HOA or COA’s are designed to establish rules for property and residents. In turn, residents who purchase property within the organizational boundaries or jurisdiction become members and are required to follow the rules and regulations established and pay contributing dues. Those that either violate a rule(s) or fail to pay obligated dues face additional fines, censorship, and or legal action. Interestingly enough, more and more real estate buyers are interested in paying for what they believe to be added security, and a strictly enforced governance of rules and regulations that help control their neighborhoods. Many believe the added expense is justified over the value they receive from these types of communities and the added expense is just included in their living expense and budget. These expense issues can be a factor for some new homebuyers looking for the greatest housing value for their dollars spent while trying to stay within a budget. HOA and COA fees can get quite expensive depending on a number of factors including amenities included, 24-hour security offered, and costs including property management fees, landscaping, and other primary service expense. HOA’s and COA’s service fees pay for the upkeep and maintenance of all common areas, additional community amenities, and even the handling of disputes between homeowners and the association that governs them. There are specific laws that govern homeowners and condominium associations depending on the nature of the association. Many of these organizations are non-profit and as such are governed as other non-profits. One thing, that all of these types of entities have in common is that they can benefit from a lawyer who possesses the legal knowledge and experience dealing with associations from their formation: i.e. creating governing documents, including the declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions, to all of the day-to-day legal issues that might develop.
Having rules and regulations that a property owner must abide by when under the jurisdiction of an HOA or COA, creates additional demand on the part of the association for competent legal counsel. At Heekin Law, P.A. our lead HOA & COA attorneys, Geoff Heekin and Ariel Spires have extensive experience representing HOA and COA’s throughout the State of Florida. We understand the issues many associations face and the relationships they what to maintain with disputing members. We also understand that a well-run and successful association is usually based on the enforcement of their rules and regulations and the adherence thereof. We represent associations and property management companies who work on behalf of an HOA or COA. We help with the continued maintenance of these associations as well as resolving disputes that arise. It takes legal judgment and expertise to successfully resolve many issues, but it also takes knowledge and skill to defend such actions in a court of law or pursue aggressive actions to obtain compliance and protect the community. If you are a developer, contractor, property management company, or other parties interested in receiving guidance in creating an association, or need help with resolving an existing dispute, we can be of assistance. Give us a call for a free, no-obligation consultation at 904-355-7000. Heekin Law, P.A. has over 40 years of shared legal experience representing associations and their governing bodies.
We firmly believe that the internet should be available and accessible to anyone, and are committed to providing a website that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of circumstance and ability.
To fulfill this, we aim to adhere as strictly as possible to the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 (WCAG 2.1) at the AA level. These guidelines explain how to make web content accessible to people with a wide array of disabilities. Complying with those guidelines helps us ensure that the website is accessible to all people: blind people, people with motor impairments, visual impairment, cognitive disabilities, and more.
This website utilizes various technologies that are meant to make it as accessible as possible at all times. We utilize an accessibility interface that allows persons with specific disabilities to adjust the website’s UI (user interface) and design it to their personal needs.
Additionally, the website utilizes an AI-based application that runs in the background and optimizes its accessibility level constantly. This application remediates the website’s HTML, adapts Its functionality and behavior for screen-readers used by the blind users, and for keyboard functions used by individuals with motor impairments.
If you’ve found a malfunction or have ideas for improvement, we’ll be happy to hear from you. You can reach out to the website’s operators by using the following email
Our website implements the ARIA attributes (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) technique, alongside various different behavioral changes, to ensure blind users visiting with screen-readers are able to read, comprehend, and enjoy the website’s functions. As soon as a user with a screen-reader enters your site, they immediately receive a prompt to enter the Screen-Reader Profile so they can browse and operate your site effectively. Here’s how our website covers some of the most important screen-reader requirements, alongside console screenshots of code examples:
Screen-reader optimization: we run a background process that learns the website’s components from top to bottom, to ensure ongoing compliance even when updating the website. In this process, we provide screen-readers with meaningful data using the ARIA set of attributes. For example, we provide accurate form labels; descriptions for actionable icons (social media icons, search icons, cart icons, etc.); validation guidance for form inputs; element roles such as buttons, menus, modal dialogues (popups), and others. Additionally, the background process scans all of the website’s images and provides an accurate and meaningful image-object-recognition-based description as an ALT (alternate text) tag for images that are not described. It will also extract texts that are embedded within the image, using an OCR (optical character recognition) technology. To turn on screen-reader adjustments at any time, users need only to press the Alt+1 keyboard combination. Screen-reader users also get automatic announcements to turn the Screen-reader mode on as soon as they enter the website.
These adjustments are compatible with all popular screen readers, including JAWS and NVDA.
Keyboard navigation optimization: The background process also adjusts the website’s HTML, and adds various behaviors using JavaScript code to make the website operable by the keyboard. This includes the ability to navigate the website using the Tab and Shift+Tab keys, operate dropdowns with the arrow keys, close them with Esc, trigger buttons and links using the Enter key, navigate between radio and checkbox elements using the arrow keys, and fill them in with the Spacebar or Enter key.Additionally, keyboard users will find quick-navigation and content-skip menus, available at any time by clicking Alt+1, or as the first elements of the site while navigating with the keyboard. The background process also handles triggered popups by moving the keyboard focus towards them as soon as they appear, and not allow the focus drift outside of it.
Users can also use shortcuts such as “M” (menus), “H” (headings), “F” (forms), “B” (buttons), and “G” (graphics) to jump to specific elements.
We aim to support the widest array of browsers and assistive technologies as possible, so our users can choose the best fitting tools for them, with as few limitations as possible. Therefore, we have worked very hard to be able to support all major systems that comprise over 95% of the user market share including Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Opera and Microsoft Edge, JAWS and NVDA (screen readers), both for Windows and for MAC users.
Despite our very best efforts to allow anybody to adjust the website to their needs, there may still be pages or sections that are not fully accessible, are in the process of becoming accessible, or are lacking an adequate technological solution to make them accessible. Still, we are continually improving our accessibility, adding, updating and improving its options and features, and developing and adopting new technologies. All this is meant to reach the optimal level of accessibility, following technological advancements. For any assistance, please reach out to