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NEW LAWS – WILL THEY AGAIN BE IGNORED BY MANY BOARDS?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published August 12, 2022
Year for
year we see new community association bills passed, claiming to
close more loopholes in laws that have more holes than Swiss
cheese. In reality most of these laws are being ignored – or
circumvented – because the folks violating these laws are even
told by certain attorneys that nothing will happen if they
ignore existing laws.
Just take
a look at what happened with their ordinances requiring older
buildings to have 40-year inspections? Not much, because it
seems that nobody ever followed up trying to really enforce
these ordinances. After the collapse of the Champlain Towers
South people looked into these ordinances – and guess what? In
Miami for example, two hi-rise condos were due for the 50-year
inspection, but hadn’t even done the 40-year inspection. There
were lots of similar examples that many associations plainly
ignored these requirements in a timely fashion. That definitely
raises the question: Will the enforcement be better now that it
is state law?
Many
condo-owners plainly refused to vote in favor of fully funded
reserves. Did the legislators even ask why before passing a bill
that will require fully funded reserves? Definitely not, because
otherwise they would have found out that owners didn’t want to
fund the reserves for one simple reason: Boards used these
reserve funds for all kinds of projects other than intended, and
when time came to -- for example – have a new roof installed,
the roof reserves were empty and a special assessment had to be
levied. But what’s the big deal? Instead of a new roof they had
nice palm trees when entering the community property.
A bill
was offered in the last legislative session that would have
taken care of the problem:
HB 811 – Condominium Association Complaints and Investigations
– filed by Representative Tom Fabricio (R-Miami). But like most
of the other bills in the past years that would have created
enforcement of all these laws the legislature is enacting on a
yearly basis it was clearly ignored.
When will
all our elected officials -- from county to federal – finally
get the message that creating laws without enforcement is just a
waste of paper that makes attorneys rich!
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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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