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DO WE REALLY WANT UCOIA?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published November 4, 2022
Already during the meetings of the
HOA TASK FORCE (2003-2004) the UNIFORM COMMON
INTEREST OWNERSHIP ACT was discussed at many occasions. The
CAI (Community Association Institute) pushed this form of
legislation for many years.
When Governor Jeb Bush
VETOED HB 391 in 2006, he as well ordered the DBPR
to create a study about extending laws and enforcement of these
laws using the proposed UCOIA as a basis for such studies. After
collecting input from all kinds of sources, nothing really
happened after this study was published.
We were opposing UCOIA for one simple reason: It would make
already complicated statutes even more complicated! Lots of
provisions that are only valid for one kind of association would
now be thrown into the mix and owners would have a hard time
figuring out what goes for one kind of association but not for
the other.
The so-called “service-providers” are all in favor of UCOIA,
because it would be harder to understand for the owners what
really works for them. More confusion means more money for the
service-providers.
For many years we have tried to convince the legislators that
provisions for record requests, elections, recalls, reserve
funds, material changes etc. should be exactly the same for all
these community associations. These are all provisions where the
ownership (home on private property or just “air”) doesn’t
matter. In all reality it doesn’t make sense that these kinds of
provisions are totally different.
It seems to me that the Florida Legislature is treating folks
living in a HOA like stepchildren of our society. Let’s take
elections: We hear so much about election fraud from politicians
of both sides of the aisle. With the election provisions in FS
720.306 you can legally cheat and eliminate any competition once
you are in power! THREAT TO DEMOCRACY?
We will continue to try to persuade our legislators to create
equal laws and ENFORCEMENT of these laws in order to protect the
welfare of more than 8 million people living in Florida’s
community associations.
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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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