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WHO IS TO BLAME?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published February 17, 2023
Let’s face it: The so-called CONDO SAFETY BILL (SB-4D)
will bankrupt many condo owners and/or make families homeless –
if the Florida Legislature is unwilling to make significant
financial changes to the time-lines.
Since 2003/2004 we were asking for mandatory fully funded
reserves. Everybody knew that by keeping monthly maintenance
fees artificially low by not adding reserve funds to the budget
that there will be a heavy price to be paid – one day. And it
seems the day is NOW!
Over the years the so-called service-providers were fighting
hard to avoid fully funded reserves to the requirements by
statutes. The lobbyists from the CAI, CALL,
CONTINENTAL (now FSR), the DEVELOPERS and the
FLORIDA BAR screamed “bloody murder” when the discussions
about fully funded reserves showing up in proposed bills. There
were heated discussions in the halls of Tallahassee between then
State Representative Julio Robaina and our CCFJ folks
on the side of fully funded reserves and the folks opposing
these proposals: Peter Dunbar (FLORIDA BAR), Donna
Berger (CALL – Becker & Poliakoff) and Travis Moore (CAI
and CONTINENTAL) – just to name a few.
But guess what? Now CEOMC President Debbie Reinhardt
(Chief Executive Officer of Management Companies) suddenly
states that “the industry is very supportive of reserve funding.
They have been for years! They just want more time!”
Who is she kidding? The industry was fighting mandatory fully
funded reserves for nearly twenty years – and spent a lot of
money doing so! These statements are just hilarious!
Yes, I definitely agree that changes to the reserve funding
provisions have to be made in order to prevent a disaster in the
condo market here in Florida, but lying about it doesn’t really
help the cause.
Why is everybody in this country so eager to blame everybody but
themselves? Without the resistance of the industry we would have
fully funded reserves since many years which would now come in
handy in funding the required inspections and structural
maintenance.
Boards and owners are only partially to blame for the momentary
problems. They just used loopholes in the statutes to keep the
maintenance fees artificially low – loopholes created by the
same industry that now claims to have been very supportive of
reserve funding. OUCH!
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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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