Condo Rules & Compassion Argued as 55-Plus Community Seeks to Evict Girl, 6
Children aren’t allowed to live in houses in the Lakes Homeowners Association in Pinellas County, Fla., which is designated a 55-and-older community in accord with federal fair housing law.
But Kimberly Broffman, now 6, has lived there with her grandparents since she was a baby. Originally, Judie and Jimmy Stotler took Kimberly and her mother in. When Melanie Broffman began using drugs, however, they demanded that she leave and took custody, recounts the St. Petersburg Times.
Although the association initially tried to accommodate the Stotlers’ pleas for leniency, the couple is now at the center of a nationally known case as LHA seeks a court order enforcing its rules and evicting Kimberly from her grandparents’ home. Now in its second year, the case appears nowhere near a resolution, the newspaper reports. Attorney Robert Eckard of Palm Harbor is representing the Stottlers on a pro bono basis in order to try to prevent the potential breakup of the family.
The Stotlers have tried to sell their home, which they inherited from a relative, so they can move with Kimberly to a neighborhood where children are allowed. But they have found no buyers in the decimated Florida real estate market, even though they have dropped their asking price from $249,000 to $129,000. Judie Stottler supports three people on her $18,000 annual income, and they can’t afford to go elsewhere without selling the house, she says.
