Specifics: I am a board member of a condominium association in Florida, U.S. Our governing documents (articles of incorporation, declaration of condominium, by-laws) are completely silent on the ownership and/or responsibility for maintenance, repair, or replacement of windows and exterior doors. Additionally, no other meeting minutes, board-adopted rules/regulations, etc., provide any guidance on the subject of windows.
We have been plagued with arguments and differing opinions regarding the responsibility of the doors and windows. There are merits to the differing opinions, many of them specific to our situation (wholesale replacement of all windows and doors 14 years ago due to near-catastrophic hurricane damage; the need to maintain the windows to hurricane-impact standards for both code and insurance reasons; the inability of owners to obtain insurance on windows; etc.). I am not seeking to argue or resolve those specific issues.
The problem I'm trying to solve is that we are unable to amend our documents to be definitive, one way or the other, on the window & door responsibility. Amending the governing documents requires a supermajority of the owners to approve the change. In the past I organized the required number of owners, but when I petitioned the board to bring amendments before the owners, I lost a few votes to opposing arguments. So we're stuck in a null state, with the responsibility undefined, but unable to modify the documents to define the responsibility.
In Florida, condominium complaints can be referred to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR), Division of Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes. In years past, the DBPR made many rulings interpreting association documents on a case-by-base basis. However, for the last 15-20 years, the DBPR has specifically rejected any interpretation of condo docs, instead only ruling on statutory infractions such as board election irregularities, providing access to official records, etc. So the DBPR can't provide a solution here.
Can I seek a declaratory judgment, so that until we modify our docs, the position of a court is that the responsibility is "X"?