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GOOD BILLS WILL GO TO THE GOVERNOR’S DESK!
By
Jan Bergemann
Published March 8, 2024
Today is
the last day of the 2024 Legislative Session. And I have to say:
I’M IMPRESSED.
All the
community association bills we had on our WISHLIST
made it through the Florida Legislature and will soon be on the
way to the Governor’s desk!
Condominiums, Homeowners’ Associations, Co-Ops and Mobile Homes
all got their fair share of great legislation – this time with
teeth (minimum according to the wordings of the bills) and the
promise that bad actors will really be punished.
Too good to be true?
Time will
tell!
I’m
trying to advocate for owners of properties in community
associations since 25 years and I have to say one thing: I have
in a all these years never seen a legislative session were so
many good owner-friendly bills were enacted.
Thanks to
Senate President Kathleen Passidomo and Speaker Paul Renner, who
allowed community association bills to be one of the most
important issues of this session. The list of sponsors of the
various bills is too long to list here, but, for example,
HB 1021 (Condominium Associations), sponsored by
Representative Vicki Lopez, had eleven (11) co-sponsors.
The
excellent HOA Bill (HB
1203), sponsored by Representative Tiffany Esposito, had
“only” seven (7) co-sponsors, but got in the end an extra boost
from Senator Jennifer Bradley, who added the important language
from HB 1243 to the existing language of HB 1203. Great
going!
In the
next few weeks we will try to interpret all these bills in more
detail. Believe me, there are a lot of good things to say about
all these great community association bills!
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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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