HOA Justice Now

Watchdog Update September 25, 2025 – Who Invited the Vendors? How S&D Engineering Handed Patty Sabates a Scope Expansion — And Nobody Voted On It

Posted by: Shawn Martin, Board Member (2024–2025) | HOA Justice Now

On July 10, 2025, S&D Engineering Project Manager Larry Alcendor sent an email to Patty Sabates — and only Patty Sabates — attaching five scope-of-works documents covering the removal and replacement of air conditioning units, electrical systems, plumbing outlets, internet and cable boxes, and other utility infrastructure across all of Omega Villas Phases 1, 2, and 3.

Four days later, on July 14, 2025, Patty forwarded that email to the board and management — not for a vote, not for owner notice, not for a budget amendment. She asked Larry Alcendor and Farrukh Sayeed to “request proposals from reputable licensed electricians and plumbing companies” and to “receive sealed bids for this process.”

Here’s what owners were never told: nobody voted to authorize this.

And by September 2025, the work was already underway — sample electrical panels and AC units being physically relocated on-site by Austro — before a single contractor had been formally selected, before a board meeting had been held to approve the work, and before owners had received any notice at all.

What Was Being Proposed

The five attachments Alcendor sent on July 10, 2025 were not minor add-ons. They were complex-wide replacement scopes covering:

  • 64 air conditioning units across Phases 1–3, requiring refrigerant recovery, full unit replacement, and new Certificates of Compliance
  • 234 electrical light fixtures, 176 electrical outlets, and 54 main meter panels across Phases 1–3
  • 152 plumbing outlets across Phases 1–3, including pipeline extensions and full reconnection
  • 99 internet and cable boxes across Phases 1–3

In each case, the justification given was identical: these items needed to be “removed and replaced to facilitate installation of new Hardie board facades.”

That framing is critical. These were not identified as independent capital improvement projects. They were described as collateral requirements of the Hardie Board siding installation — an installation that itself was never subject to a proper 75% owner vote for material alteration of the common elements.

The Coordination Problem

Read the email chain carefully. On July 10, S&D’s Larry Alcendor emails Patty directly — not the full board, not management — with five completed scope-of-works documents already prepared, already formatted, already detailed with unit counts and work specifications. Alcendor asks Patty to move forward with soliciting bids.

Patty’s July 14 forward adds other board members and management. She frames it as a simple administrative request: help us find vendors.

Note what is missing from Patty’s message:

  • No reference to a board vote authorizing this scope expansion
  • No owner notification of the proposed work
  • No budget line item or reserve study amendment
  • No disclosure that this work was not in the original $4.85 million Banco Popular loan contract
  • No disclosure that the furring strip wall extension — S&D’s own specified installation method — was the cause of the utility relocation requirement in the first place

The board president is directing the engineer of record to solicit bids for a seven-figure scope expansion, and she is doing it by forwarding an email from her iPhone.

The Work Started Anyway — Before the Vote That Never Happened

On September 25, 2025, I documented and disclosed to federal, banking, media, and watchdog stakeholders that the Board had already begun physically relocating electrical panels and air conditioning units on-site as part of first-story renovations — with photographic evidence attached to that disclosure.

The timeline is damning:

  • July 10, 2025 — S&D sends Patty five scope-of-works documents, asks her to solicit bids
  • July 14, 2025 — Patty forwards to board, frames it as administrative, asks S&D to help find vendors
  • Late September 2025 — Bids reportedly collected only the week prior to my September 25 disclosure
  • September 2025 — Electrical panels and AC units already being relocated on-site
  • No board meeting held to approve contractor selection or associated costs at any point in this sequence

Florida Statute §718.112(2)(c) requires that contracts of this magnitude be approved at a duly noticed open meeting. That meeting never happened. The work started anyway.

This is not an administrative oversight. This is the governing pattern documented throughout this case: decisions made privately, work started without authorization, owners presented with facts on the ground rather than facts on an agenda.

The Furring Strip Connection

This email chain does not exist in a vacuum. On October 10, 2025 — three months after these scope-of-works documents were circulated — S&D Engineering formally disclosed in writing that the Hardie Board NOA installation methodology requires 1×4 SPF wood furring strips attached to framing at 6″ on center, causing the exterior wall surface to extend outward by 1 to 1.5 inches complex-wide.

That wall extension is why the utility relocations were needed. The furring strips pushed the walls out. The MEP components mounted on those walls — the electrical panels, the AC lines, the hose bibs — suddenly did not fit anymore. S&D’s own design decision created the problem, and then S&D generated the scope-of-works documents to fix the problem — at owner expense.

What owners were never told:

  1. The furring strip installation method was not in the original construction contract scope
  2. The 1–1.5 inch wall extension was a known consequence of the NOA specification S&D selected
  3. That wall extension was also the primary reason windows could not be reinstalled — the same windows owners are now being pressured to replace at individual cost
  4. The utility relocation work was not budgeted, not voted on, and not disclosed in the November 30, 2025 special assessment notice

The scope expansion did not arise because the buildings were in worse shape than expected. It arose because the engineer of record specified an installation method that required cascading additional work — and then positioned itself to manage and bill for that additional work.

The Oversight Loop Is Also Documented

While the Board was authorizing construction without votes, I was simultaneously escalating through every available regulatory channel. On September 25, 2025, the same day I documented the unauthorized construction activity, I also disclosed the status of my regulatory escalation efforts to the same wide distribution list.

The picture at that point was already clear:

The Florida Chief Inspector General had formally responded on September 24, 2025 regarding case CIG #2025-08-27-0012. The CIG acknowledged my submissions, confirmed that my evidence had been forwarded to DBPR Inspector General Rodney MacKinnon for review, and declared the matter “closed at this time” from their perspective — directing me to the Florida Bar for attorney-related concerns and back to DBPR for everything else.

DBPR is the same agency that had already closed eight of my complaints without substantive action.

This is the circular oversight failure documented in detail elsewhere on this site: each agency acknowledges the problem, confirms it has forwarded the matter to another agency, and closes its own file. Meanwhile, construction continues without authorization, fines continue to accumulate, and owners continue to bear the financial consequences.

The Fines Are Accelerating

The unauthorized construction activity and oversight failures are not occurring against a backdrop of financial stability. As of August 31, 2025, City of Plantation fines tied to unlicensed and defective construction at Omega Villas had reached $1,237,400 — with projections showing potential exposure exceeding $2.4 million by 2027 if the underlying construction deficiencies are not resolved.

The Board’s response to this financial crisis has been to authorize additional unremediated construction work without owner approval, while simultaneously expending association resources on retaliatory legal actions against the owner who has been documenting these failures.

The updated fines chart and projection through 2027 is available on this site at the Exhibit L — Government Correspondence Timeline page.

What Florida Law Required

Florida Statute §718.116 requires proper notice and owner approval for special assessments. Florida Statute §718.3026 requires competitive bidding for contracts exceeding the threshold amount. Florida Statute §718.111(13) requires that material alterations to common elements receive a 75% owner vote unless the declaration provides otherwise. Florida Statute §718.112(2)(c) requires board approval at a duly noticed open meeting for contracts of this magnitude.

The July–September 2025 sequence shows none of those processes were followed. Five scope-of-works documents covering complex-wide replacement of AC, electrical, plumbing, and telecom infrastructure were circulated directly between the engineer and the board president, bids were collected weeks later, work began on-site before a contractor was formally selected, and no board meeting was ever held to authorize any of it.

What This Document Record Is Being Filed As

This email chain and its five attachments, together with the September 25, 2025 oversight disclosure, are now part of the documented evidence record for this case. They have been preserved, timestamped, and cross-referenced to:

  • Exhibit T / Furring Strip Documentation — wall extension methodology that created the utility relocation requirement
  • S&D Scope of Works Letters, July 8, 2025 batch — the five individual scope documents attached to the July 10 email
  • October 10, 2025 Hardie Board & Utility Relocation Letter — S&D’s formal confirmation of the 1–1.5 inch wall extension
  • Exhibit L — Government Correspondence Timeline — updated September 24, 2025 with CIG closure letter and DBPR referral
  • November 30, 2025 Special Assessment Notice — issued without owner vote, without competitive bidding disclosure, and without reference to this scope expansion
  • Banco Popular Loan Contract — original $4.85M scope against which all additions must be measured
  • Bank Accountability & Intervention Blueprint — forwarded to OCC, FDIC, CFPB, and Popular Bank as part of lender notification strategy

This documentation has been shared with federal oversight bodies, Florida legislators, banking regulators, media outlets, and watchdog organizations as part of the contemporaneous notice strategy described throughout this site.

The Bottom Line

When a board president receives a multi-trade scope expansion from the engineer of record — privately, before the board, before the owners, before any vote — and responds by asking that same engineer to begin soliciting bids, that is not project management. That is a unilateral financial decision Florida condominium law does not permit a single board officer to make.

When that work then begins on-site before bids are even formally reviewed, before a board meeting is held, and before owners receive any notice, it is not a paperwork problem. It is unauthorized construction — documented, photographed, and now part of a federal evidence record.

The question is not whether the AC units needed work, or whether the electrical panels needed to be moved, or whether the plumbing outlets needed to be repositioned. The question is: who authorized it, when, and under what legal process?

Based on this email chain and the September 2025 on-site documentation, the answer is: nobody, before the fact, and under no process at all.

That is the record.

Cross-references: Case Files– see Exhibit T (Furring Strips), S&D Engineering Scope of Works Audit Table, October 10, 2025 Hardie Board Letter, Exhibit L Government Correspondence Timeline, Bank Accountability Blueprint, State Escalation Timeline, RICO Email Escalations Timeline

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