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TURN-OVER BY DEVELOPER?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published June 8, 2018
I know quite a lot of associations where the
owners would just love to see the developer turn over the
community to the owners and ride off into the sunset.
Over the years we have heard many outright
horror-stories from owners fighting with developers who think
that being in charge of the association gives them – or even
their kids -- a life-long source of income.
I have seen developers stopping the sale of
homes just before reaching the percentage of homes sold that
would require the developer to turn over the community according
to Florida statutes.
Other developers even think that the
association funds are rightfully theirs and use them at their
discretion.
Remember the developer who used the
association maintenance funds to pay his private bills, and then
even paid bail from association funds after he got arrested for
embezzling association funds. I guess we are all looking forward
to watch that trial supposedly set for autumn of this year.
Ocala and surrounding seems to be a hot-bed
for developers that harass owners after purchasing homes in
their communities. Some of the methods used by these
“developers” are outright fraudulent, but it looks like they are
getting away with it since Florida is “soft” on crime.
This goes mostly for HOAs and it’s absolutely
necessary to change the existing statutes in order to protect
the owners from fraudulent developers. There should not only be
a percentage requiring turn-over, there should as well be a
time-limit.
With other words: Before buying into
developer-controlled associations make sure that you look into
the history of the community! Don’t buy into a dictatorship run
by the developer!
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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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