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DON'T CONFUSE ASSISTANCE
WITH OVER-REACHING
REGULATION
By
Eric Glazer, Esq.
Published
March 4, 2013
As
you all know, Jan and I are trying hard to finally allow the
Department of Business and Professional Regulation to have the
ability to help the millions of Floridians who live in homeowner
associations throughout the state.
Let me tell you a little about what we are up against.
Unlike the Florida Condominium statutes which speak
volumes about how the DBPR assists owners and residents who live
in condominium associations throughout the state, here is what Chapter
720 of the Florida Statutes says regarding homeowner
associations:
The
Legislature recognizes that it is not in the best interest of
homeowners’ associations or the individual association members
thereof to create or impose a bureau or other agency of state
government to regulate the affairs of homeowners’
associations.
For
some reason, of which I am still unaware, there is a belief by
The Florida Legislature that members who live in a homeowner's
association should have no assistance whatsoever from the
Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
I guess the thought is that members of homeowner
associations should not be hassled by a government office who
would stick their noses into the affairs of the people who live
in these horizontally spread out communities.
But…..if you live in one of those vertical buildings
called condominiums, it is apparently in your best interest of
for the state to create or impose a bureau or other agency of
state government to regulate your affairs. If
it sounds like an absurd double standard, it's only because it
is.
Perhaps
when creating Florida Statute 720 The Florida Legislature
envisioned that having the DBPR assist homeowner associations
would be a form of …..dare I say it………..bureaucracy.
An over expansion of government.
While I too am all in favor of not having the government
meddle in all our affairs, that is absolutely not the role of
the DBPR as it applies to condominiums or as it would apply to
homeowner associations.
On
the contrary, the DBPR assists condominiums by reviewing and
approving declarations of condominiums before developers are
allowed to sell units in their community, investigates
complaints against boards who may be violating the law,
investigates complaints against developers, provides educational
materials to condominium residents, answers condominium
questions on the telephone, provides an Office of the
Condominium Ombudsman who provides election monitoring
assistance if the members of the condominium community want it,
and provides a website to help answer common condominium
questions. Does this
sound like a bureaucracy that we need to be afraid of?
Does this sound like over-regulation if also applied to
homeowner associations? Or……….does
it sound like members of homeowner associations are not getting
the same benefits that members of condominiums do?
Funny
how the legislature apparently likes to stay out of the affairs
of homeowner associations until it's time to protect HOA
developers. Despite
the fact that developers of a condominium are required by law to
provide extensive warranties to the owners of new condominiums,
last year The Florida Legislature overturned the decision of a
Florida
appeals court that extended similar warranties to HOAs.
Instead of applauding the fact that the court decision
provided HOA owners with certain protections from developers who
build communities for families, on the contrary, The Florida
Legislature took those warranties
away in the blink of an eye, declaring that removing
warranties for people that put down their life savings on a home
would be in the interest of protecting Florida's fragile real
estate market.
If
you are upset about how The Florida Legislature treats owners in
an HOA and believe that owners in an HOA are entitled to the
same rights and privileges and assistance as those that live in
condominiums throughout our state, you are again urged to
contact your local State Senator and House Representative and
demand their support for SB 580 and SB 596.
To find out who your elected officials are, go to:
http://www.flsenate.gov/Senators/Find
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About
HOA & Condo Blog
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Eric Glazer graduated from the University of
Miami School of Law in 1992 after receiving a B.A. from
NYU. He is currently entering his 20th year as a
Florida
lawyer practicing |
community association law and is the owner of
Glazer and Associates, P.A. an eight attorney law firm in
Orlando
and
Hollywood
For the past two years Eric has been the host of Condo Craze and
HOAs, a weekly one hour radio show on 850 WFTL.
See: www.condocrazeandhoas.com.
He is the first attorney in the State of Florida
that designed a course that certifies condominium residents as
eligible to serve on a condominium Board of Directors and has
now certified more than 2,500 Floridians. He is certified as a
Circuit Court Mediator by The Florida Supreme Court and has
mediated dozens of disputes between associations and unit
owners. Finally, he recently argued the Cohn v. Grand
Condominium case before The Florida Supreme Court, which is
perhaps the single most important association law case decided
by the court in a decade. |
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