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ALL GOVERNING DOCUMENTS HAVE TO
BE RECORDED
By
Jan Bergemann
Published November 9, 2018
The Florida
legislature was obviously sick and tired hearing from homeowners
that their board is enforcing rules that don’t really exist!
They created new
rules for amending and recording governing documents.
In the future any
board that wants to amend rules and regulations has to jump
through all the necessary hoops – including voting of the whole
membership – if so required.
Amendments to the
governing documents have to be proposed in a format that equals
bills in the Florida Legislature.
Green Underlined:
ADDED
Red
Strikethrough:
DELETED
And the court filing
has to be accompanied by an affidavit stating that the new
rules/regulations were duly adapted by the board/membership at a
public meeting.
By the way: If a
vote of the membership is required, it has to be done in writing
by limited proxy. No more hand-signs at meetings or statements
by the board: “We have the necessary number of votes to enact
the amendment!”
The board – if
challenged by a lawsuit -- has to be able, even many years
later, to prove that they followed the rules when passing this
amendment and that the membership vote of approval reached the
necessary percentage.
Together with
FS 720.3035 (Architectural
control covenants; parcel owner improvements; rights and
privileges) the
legislature hoped to create the necessary laws to prevent board
members from making up rules “as they go along!”
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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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