TO BE CONTINUED: THE FIGHT BETWEEN LAWYERS AND CAMS!

By Jan Bergemann

Published June 19, 2015

  

I may sound like a TV station: Repeats, repeats – and more repeats! And I can only repeat: The fight between lawyers and CAMs is all about money, definitely not about the welfare of the property owners whose money these “professionals” are fighting about.

 

I have heard the weirdest arguments why CAMs should be allowed to do certain legal work. One totally wrong argument: Having the CAMs do the work can save a lot of money for the association.

CAMs are just that: Managers with no legal background! And most CAM contracts contain clauses that require the association to pay for the legal defense of a CAM – even if he/she made serious mistakes. Do you call that: Saving Money?

And in recent times we see more and more CAM firms holding board certification seminars – and the DBPR even blesses these events and lists them on their website as Approved Education Providers.

 

Make no mistake: Nothing wrong if the CAM holding the seminar would just read a pre-prepared statement, stating the statutes etc. But that’s not what these seminars are really all about.

 

The fact that people are willing to attend these seminars instead of just signing the Condominium Association Board Member Certification Form – the way out for the “lazy” folks who already “know it all” – is the opportunity to ask questions from a legal expert.

 

And that’s where the seminar turns into an “unlicensed practice of law” – when the CAMs start to interpret the laws and/or governing docs.

 

With other words – and as usual – the DBPR is watering down well-meant laws enacted by the Florida legislature intended to protect the rights of Florida’s property owners.

 

There are lots of good CAMs out there, but there are as well a lot of total morons among them who might have won their license on the County Fair. You wouldn’t believe a lot of statements some of these CAMs are making. And they are not ashamed to put their nonsense in writing.

 

But good or bad, CAMs don’t have neither the legal training nor the license to practice law in Florida.

With other words: Let the CAMs do the managing and let the lawyers do the "lawyering". Isn’t that what the names of these professions actually imply?


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Jan Bergemann 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  

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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