Rampant foreclosures leave condo owners stuck with fees
To most people, Brittany’s Place in Largo looked no different than the hundreds of other blandly attractive apartment complexes built in Florida in the 1970s and ’80s.
To four Miami men, it looked like gold.
As the condominium boom neared a frenzied peak in 2005, they hit on a plan: buy the 96-unit complex, spend a few thousand dollars per apartment on showy upgrades, then sell the units as condos at a tidy profit. It seemed like a fine idea, one that had enraptured developers all over the state.
Now, five years later, buyers like Peggy Bodine have discovered just how wrong a condo conversion can go.