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IS
A C.A.M. MANDATORY?
By
Eric Glazer, Esq.
Published September 22, 2014
The other day on the show, we spoke about a President of
an association who is in trouble because he used community
association funds to pay himself for doing services that would
normally be performed by a licensed community association
manager. So, you
might ask, does that mean all community associations must hire a
community association manager? The answer to this question is
NO. A community
association does not need to hire a manager.
The Board can do all the book keeping its wants.
However, if the Board members are going to get
compensated for doing the work of a C.A.M. they have to be
licensed. It boils
down to money. It’s
OK for the Board to manage the place without professional help,
as long as they aren’t getting paid to do it.
Even if a member did bother to get a
CAM
license, the statutes require them to refrain from participating
in any board vote to hire him or herself as the manager.
The other question that comes to mind is….. can the
association hire an unlicensed bookkeeper?
I hate when I hear that.
I have never seen a situation where the unlicensed
“bookkeeper” is not performing services that only a
licensed manager can perform for pay.
To me, the simple answer is therefore NO.
Florida
law not only requires the community association manager to be
licensed, but if that manager is working for a company, that
company must be licensed as well.
One community I know recently found out that the company
they contracted with was licensed, but the community association
manager assigned to the property wasn’t.
To me, clearly a violation of the law and a breach of the
contract by the management company.
As many of you know, this year The Florida Legislature
gave community association managers lots of new powers that used
to be considered the practice of law.
It is therefore more important than ever to ensure that
before deciding upon which manager or management company you
decide to hire, get references and ensure that you verify the
management firm is licensed and insured and that the manager
assigned to your community is licensed as well.
The right manager can brighten the smiles of the Board
and all of the owners, and on the flip side, the wrong one can
get the community into lots of trouble.
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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 7,500 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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