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WHAT A JOKE!
By
Jan Bergemann
Published August 27, 2021
Board members hold a huge
responsibility: They can quickly ruin the personal finances of
each owner in the community by making wrong decisions.
It is absolutely important
that these board members know how to deal with this “monster”
called community association. They need to know the laws
regulating the community and the rules set by the governing
documents of their association.
But our legislature is
allowing board members to just sign a certificate saying “they
know it all!”
This is the exact wording
of the paragraph in the Condo Act FS 718.112(2)(d)4.b.:
Within 90 days after being elected or appointed to the board of
an association of a residential condominium, each newly elected
or appointed director shall certify in writing to the secretary
of the association that he or she has read the association’s
declaration of condominium, articles of incorporation, bylaws,
and current written policies; that he or she will work to uphold
such documents and policies to the best of his or her ability;
and that he or she will faithfully discharge his or her
fiduciary responsibility to the association’s members.
In my opinion this can
only be considered a joke. They can just sign it and know full
well that it doesn’t really matter since they are indemnified
and protected by the “BUSINESS JUDGMENT RULE”.
They will not be held
responsible, no matter how stupid their decisions and how badly
their decisions are affecting the welfare of their neighbors.
Board members need to be
educated and really need to know the laws and rules governing
their community.
As long as we don’t hold
board members, association attorneys and community association
managers responsible for their actions the system will never
work!
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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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