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PROBLEMATIC PROVISIONS OR OWNER-PROTECTION?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published March 11, 2022
As Eric
stated in his blog on Monday enforcement of unpaid dues has been
made a lot more difficult by the Florida Legislature in the last
few years.
But, as
usual, there are always two sides to the story: In my opinion
the added restrictions were caused by some sharks – also known
as collection attorneys – who made a fortune out of going after
some unit-owners who fell behind on their maintenance dues for
just a few bucks by quickly filing liens and foreclosure notices
and then “blackmailing” these unit-owners into paying outrageous
legal fees or losing their homes – often for very small amounts
of unpaid dues.
In my
opinion the legislature did the right thing with adding these
“owner-protections” into the Florida statutes. I honestly find
it absolutely unreasonable if some owner is forced to pay $5,000
in legal fees because he/she failed to pay $80 in monthly
maintenance fees.
Yes, as
Eric said, it takes now quite a while before the association can
go after delinquent owners and before attorney’s fees can be
added to the delinquent amount.
And the
way our economy goes and all the new cost for unit-owners our
“esteemed” legislators added during this year’s session, we will
again see a myriad of liens and foreclosures being filed since
all the newly added “safety-measures” will price a lot of
families out of their homes.
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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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