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LOANS AND MORTGAGES FOR CONDOS?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published January 28, 2022
The collapse of the Champlain Towers South has changed a lot in
the condo world. New laws, new insurance policies and higher
premiums and new rules for loans and mortgages are being
discussed or are already in the books.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac created new rules (starting January 1
and February 28) that makes it a lot more difficult to get
government backed loans and mortgages.
The questionnaires are a lot more complicated and contain now
questions that ask for deficiencies regarding safety, soundness,
structural integrity and habitability of the building.
A lot of the older condo buildings here in Florida will be soon
looking for loans to take care of necessary expensive structural
repairs since they failed for many years to add reserve funds to
their budgets. But now, when the money is desperately needed,
you find only a very few banks here in Florida still willing to
give loans to these associations. And if these associations are
unable to get loans to pay for the necessary repairs there will
be only one way to get the funds to pay for these repairs:
SPECIAL ASSESSMENTS!
Our legislators are in the moment discussing the possibility of
making reserve funding mandatory. But some legislators are
already on record in opposition of mandatory reserves. Their
argument: Many owners, especially retired folks living of social
security, will not be able to pay for these increased monthly
maintenance fees.
Ever thought of this? If an owner is unable to pay much
increased maintenance fees how would he/she pay for a huge
special assessment necessary because there are no reserve funds?
And then we’ll see again the foreclosure law firms at work,
foreclosing on the units and kicking these folks out of their
homes. Is that what we want?
Haven’t we learned anything?
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Jan Bergemann is president of Cyber Citizens For Justice,
Florida
's largest state-wide property owners' advocacy group.
CCFJ works on legislation to help owners living in
community
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associations. He moved to
Florida
in 1995 - hoping to retire. He moved into a HOA, where the
developer cheated the homeowners and used the association dues
for his own purposes. End of retirement!
CCFJ was born in the year 2000, when some owners met in
Tallahassee
- finding out that power is only in numbers. Bergemann was a
member of Governor Jeb Bush's HOA Task force in 2003/2004.
The organization has two websites to inform interested
Florida
homeowners and condo owners:
News Website: http://www.ccfj.net/.
Educational Website: http://www.ccfjfoundation.net/.
We think that only owners can really represent owners, since all
service providers surely have a different interest! We are
trying to create owner-friendly laws, but the best laws are
useless without enforcement. And enforcement is totally lacking
in
Florida
!
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