|
SO WHAT MAY BE IN STORE FOR 2020?
By
Eric Glazer, Esq.
Published January 6, 2020
Hope everyone had both a happy and a healthy new year. I also
hope you are all well rested and are now ready to stand-up and
protect yourselves by demanding new laws that benefit our
community associations. For the next few weeks, we will let you
know what community association law bills have been filed in
either The Florida House of Representatives or The Florida
Senate. We will also keep track of their progress and tell you
whether or not we believe they deserve a thumbs up or down.
Let’s start:
HB 0137 (REPRESENTATIVE CORTES):
Changes the HOA recall statute to allow directors to be recalled
if 60% of the people who are living in the HOA vote to remove
the current board or board member, rather than a majority vote
of all of the owners. This bill is dead on arrival and will go
nowhere. Just because someone does not live at the HOA does not
mean that their vote is worth less than other owners who happen
to live at the condominium. The recall statute is definitely
broken, but this is not the way to fix it.
HB 0233 (REPRESENTATIVE CORTES):
This bill would require the parties to attend arbitration,
should pre-suit mediation fail. This bill is also DOA. As if
the cost of pursuing a dispute is not expensive enough, this
bill would require the parties to first mediate and then
arbitrate before you finally get to tell your story to a judge.
Under this bill, it would take you up to 90 days to get to a
mediator, then several months or more in arbitration. Think of
the costs and expenses. Bad idea.
CS/HB 476: 718.129 Law enforcement vehicles.—For
condominiums, HOAs and co-ops, provides that an association may
not prohibit a law enforcement officer, as defined in s.
943.10(1), who is a unit owner, or who is a tenant, guest, or
invitee of a unit owner, from parking his or her assigned law
enforcement vehicle in an area where the unit owner, or the
tenant, guest, or invitee of the unit owner, otherwise has a
right to park. This bill is already breezing through The
Florida Legislature and I see no obstacles in sight. This
removes the fight about whether or not a law enforcement vehicle
is a “commercial vehicle” that is typically prohibited. I think
this is a great bill that is long over due.
Stay tuned……we will update you throughout the legislative
session.
|
|
About
HOA & Condo Blog
 |
Eric Glazer graduated from
the University of Miami School of Law in 1992 after
receiving a B.A. from NYU. He has practiced community
association law for more than 2
|
decades and is the owner of Glazer
and Sachs, P.A. a seven attorney law firm with offices in
Fort Lauderdale and Orlando and satellite offices in Naples,
Fort Myers and Tampa.
Since 2009, Eric has been the host
of Condo Craze and HOAs, a weekly one hour radio show that airs
at noon each Sunday on 850 WFTL.
See:
www.condocrazeandhoas.com.
He is the first attorney in the
State of Florida that designed a course that certifies
condominium residents as eligible to serve on a condominium
Board of Directors and has now certified more than 10,000
Floridians all across the state. He is certified as a Circuit
Court Mediator by The Florida Supreme Court and has mediated
dozens of disputes between associations and unit owners. Eric
also devotes significant time to advancing legislation in the
best interest of Florida community association members.
|
