Sunshine Vistas Homeowners Ass'n v. Caruana

• Decision Date: 02 September 1993
• Docket Number: No. 79981,79981
• Citation: 623 So.2d 490
• Court: Florida Supreme Court
• Parties: 18 Fla. L. Weekly S463 SUNSHINE VISTAS HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, etc., Petitioner, v. Louis CARUANA, etc., et al., Respondents.

Page 490

623 So.2d 490

18 Fla. L. Weekly S463

SUNSHINE VISTAS HOMEOWNERS ASSOCIATION, etc., Petitioner, v. Louis CARUANA, etc., et al., Respondents.

No. 79981.

Supreme Court of Florida.

Sept. 2, 1993.

John K. Shubin, Shubin & Bellas, P.A., Miami, FL, for petitioner.

James E. Tribble, Blackwell & Walker, P.A., Miami, FL, for respondents.

R. Norwood Gay, III, Gen. Counsel, Attys.' Title Ins. Fund, Inc., Orlando, FL, amicus curiae.

SHAW, Justice.

We review Sunshine Vistas Homeowners Ass'n v. Caruana, 597 So.2d 809, 811 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992), in which the district court certified the following question:

WHETHER THE FLORIDA MARKETABLE RECORD TITLE ACT HAS THE EFFECT OF EXTINGUISHING A PLAT RESTRICTION WHICH WAS CREATED PRIOR TO THE ROOT OF TITLE ¹ WHERE THE MUNIMENTS OF TITLE ² IN THE CHAIN OF TITLE DESCRIBE THE PROPERTY BY ITS LEGAL DESCRIPTION WHICH MAKES REFERENCE TO THE PLAT AND THE MUNIMENTS OF TITLE STATE THAT THE CONVEYANCE IS GIVEN SUBJECT TO COVENANTS AND RESTRICTIONS OF RECORD.

We have jurisdiction. Art. V, Sec. 3(b)(4), Fla. Const.

Townsend Construction Corporation (Townsend) bought a parcel of property in the Sunshine Vistas subdivision of Coconut Grove in 1990 and, with Caruana, began constructing a building thereon. The Sunshine Vistas subdivision plat, filed in 1925, contains a setback restriction which the Sunshine Vistas Homeowners' Association (Homeowners) seek to enforce through a declaratory judgment action.

The Marketable Record Titles to Real Property Act (act) is intended to simplify and facilitate land title transactions "by allowing persons to rely on a record title ... subject only to such limitations as appear in [section] 712.03[, Florida Statutes (1989) ]." Sec. 712.10, Fla.Stat. (1989). The act provides that a person "vested with any estate in land of record for 30 years or more" has "a marketable record title ... free and clear of all claims" except claims preserved by section 712.03. Section 712.02, Fla.Stat. (1989). Townsend and Caruana argue that the act extinguishes the setback restriction because it is not specifically identified in the muniments of title beginning with the root of title. Homeowners argue that the muniments make the specific identification that section 712.03 requires and thus the restriction is preserved. The trial court granted and the district court affirmed summary judgment in favor of Townsend and Caruana.

We quash the result below and answer the question in the negative. Section 712.03 provides:

Exceptions to marketability.--Such marketable record title shall not affect or extinguish the following rights:

(1) Estates or interests, easements and use restrictions disclosed by and defects inherent in the muniments of title on which said estate is based beginning with the root of title; provided, however, that a general reference in any of such muniments to easements, use restrictions or other interests created prior to the root of title shall not be sufficient to preserve them unless specific identification by reference to book and page of record or by name of recorded plat be made therein to a recorded title transaction which imposed, transferred or continued such easement, use restrictions or other interests....

(Emphasis added.) Thus, a thirty-one-year-old restriction is preserved if the root of title or a subsequent muniment contains a "specific identification" to a recorded title transaction that imposed, transferred, or continued the restriction. Id. The "specific identification" to the title transaction can be made in one of two ways: (1) by reference to the book and page in the public records where the title transaction that imposed the restriction can be found, or (2) by reference to the name of a recorded plat that imposed the restriction. Id.

Townsend's root of title is a 1951 deed conveying the property from Mr. and Mrs. Heurer to Mr. Pasco. It describes the property conveyed as follows:

Lots sixteen (16) and seventeen (17), in block five (5), of SUNSHINE VISTAS, according to the plat thereof recorded in Plat Book 16, at page 29, of the Public Records of Dade County, Florida. This conveyance is given subject to covenants and restrictions of record and subject to taxes for 1951 and subsequent years.

The 1977 muniment, a deed from Mr. Pasco to Mr. Block, thus describes the property conveyed:

Lots 16 and 17 in Block 5 of SUNSHINE VISTAS, according to the Plat thereof, as recorded in Plat Book 16 at Page 29, of the Public Records of Dade County, Florida. SUBJECT TO: limitations, restrictions and easements of record, if any, applicable zoning ordinances and regulations and taxes for the year 1978 and subsequent years.

The 1990 muniment, a deed from Mr. and Mrs. Block to Townsend Construction Corporation, describes the property conveyed:

Lots 16 and 17 in Block 5 of SUNSHINE VISTAS, according to the Plat thereof, as recorded in Plat Book 16 at Page 29, of the Public Records of Dade County, Florida.

Each of these muniments makes reference to SUNSHINE VISTAS--the name of the recorded plat that imposed the restriction. The use restriction at issue here thus is preserved by these muniments. We therefore disagree with the courts below that the setback restriction is extinguished by the act. To so hold effectively reads out of section 712.03(1) the words: "unless specific identification by reference to ... name of recorded plat be made therein"; we lack the power to delete words from the statute. ³

This result is consistent with case law prior and subsequent to the act: reference to a plat in the description of a deed incorporates the plat's terms. Wahrendorff v. Moore, 93 So.2d 720 (Fla.1957); Crenshaw v. Holzberg, 503 So.2d 1275 (Fla. 2d...