BILLS ON THE MOVE?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published February 11, 2022
We are past half-time of the 2022
Legislative Session and so far the only owner-friendly bill
on the move is
SB 394 and companion bill
HB 547: Mandatory Board Certification Seminars.
The other community association bills
on the move so far only help developers, attorneys and other
service providers and are definitely not written to protect
families living in these community associations.
These bills (SB
1702 and
SB 7042)
will definitely -- together with the immense raise in insurance
premiums – seriously increase the monthly maintenance fees of
condo owners, but all these increased fees will do little to
create money needed for structural repairs.
Yes, on paper it will create more
reserve funds, but as long as these reserve funds are not
protected there is no guarantee that the money will still be
there when needed for the purpose intended. Many owners don’t
want mandatory funding of reserves since they have seen how
reserve funds disappeared – not only by scams and/or
embezzlement, but also being spent by dictatorial boards for
other purposes than intended.
As long as these reserve funds are not
being protected – see bill proposals
SB 274 and
HB 811 (not on any committee agenda so far) – the
Legislature is failing to protect condo owners as initial claims
indicated: Preventing another catastrophe like the collapse of
the Champlain Towers South in Surfside that has cost 98 lives!
I will never understand why our
legislators always look out for the “welfare” of the service
providers instead of making sure that the lives and welfare of
the families living in Florida’s condominiums are protected.
And it looks like the interests of
more than 2.6 million owners of homes in mandatory homeowners’
associations (FS 720) are again being ignored:
SB 1296 and companion bill
HB 1033 have so far made no great progress. A
committee substitute added complicating fining procedures (FS
720.305) and mediation requirements (FS 720.311) to the existing
version of HB 1033.
In my opinion the Florida Legislature
is again – so far – catering to the requests of special interest
to the detriment of Florida’s homeowners and condo-owners.
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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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