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TALLAHASSEE MOST USELESS
AGENCIES: DIVISION OF FLORIDA CONDOMINIUMS AND MOBILE HOMES TOPS
THE CHARTS
By
Jan Bergemann
Published April 27, 2018
This week we are
talking about community association laws, rules and the
ENFORCEMENT of these laws and rules.
Eric talked on
Monday about judges, especially Broward County judges – pros and
cons, good and bad!
I have chosen to
write about the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares
and Mobile Homes, the Tallahassee agency that tops in my opinion
the charts for “MOST USELESS AGENCY PAID FOR BY TAXPAYERS’
MONEY.”
Let’s face it: As
much as homeowners living and/or owning property in mandatory
HOAs regulated by Florida statutes 720 (HOA ACT) are
begging lawmakers since many years to create a regulatory agency
in order to be able to deal with daily problems in homeowners’
associations – avoiding costly and lengthy court battles.
But even
representatives from the Florida BAR, who actually stated that
they would be in favor of a regulatory agency for HOAs, refuse
to support such legislation as long as the Division is as
useless as it is in the moment.
Since Kevin
Stanfield took over as Director of the Division this agency is
plainly deteriorating. And with Bruce Campbell condo owners have
to deal with a Condo Ombudsman who doesn’t seem to be interested
in the job in the first place. In my opinion he just took the
job to add a second pension to add to his retirement portfolio.
The employees of the
agency use form letters to deter owners from filing complaints.
And – after a while – they just inform complainants that their
“investigation” showed no proof any “wrongdoing”. The
“investigation” of the Bureau of Compliance is nothing but a
sham – a real investigation never takes place in most cases as
can be seen by the fact that documented proof was never followed
up on and witnesses to the violations of Florida statutes are
never even contacted.
Complaints about
election-monitors bodging elections are piling up. Looking at a
recent list of election monitors used by the Office of the Condo
Ombudsman shows that the experienced long-time election monitors
are barely used. Some newer ones seem to be preferred – and have
lots of complaints filed against them. On the list I was
supplied was as well an attorney who is known to have problems
conducting elections in the communities where he is the
association attorney. He has a long list of “lost” election and
recall arbitrations. Is that the kind of monitor owners ask for
to conduct their elections?
According to various
reports the newly hired Chief Arbitrator is a person with
obviously very little knowledge about condo law. Is that the
kind of experts condo-owners can expect when they are paying $4
into the Condo Trust Fund?
Let’s face it: The Division of Florida Condominiums,
Timeshares and Mobile Homes is a pretty useless institution
who clearly fails to do the job their employees are getting paid
for.
IN MY OPINION THIS
AGENCY IS A TOTAL WASTE OF TAXPAYERS’ MONEY!
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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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