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THE NEW LAWS – A LITTLE BACKGROUND
By
Eric Glazer, Esq.
Published November 13, 2023
This blog is going to make a lot of people angry and perhaps a
lot of people thinking I did the right thing, but here we go…..
The tragic collapse of the Champlain Towers in Surfside, Florida
occurred on June 24th, 2021 killing 98 innocent men,
women and children. I was there a few days later staring at
mounds of rubble and thinking that entire families were buried
under there. Little kids. Babies. It was too much.
The following year, The Florida Legislature then went into
session and I certainly assumed there would be new safety laws
passed that ensured a collapse of a building never happens
again. I certainly assumed there would be some legislation
passed that would require the funding of reserves as I have
begged The Florida Legislature to do in the past. Instead, not
a single new law was passed. Nothing. I was absolutely
stunned.
The day after The Florida Legislature went home, I drafted an
overnight letter to Governor DeSantis telling him that his own
party (that controls everything in Tallahassee) threw him under
the bus. By not making a single new law, The Florida
Legislature spit in the face of the 98 victims and their
families and that if another building fell on the Governor’s
watch, his political career was finished.
I had the honor of being on Jim DeFede’s TV show and trounced
The Florida Legislature for in effect, ignoring the tragedy and
ignoring the possibility of future collapses. Of course, we
blasted away on the Condo Craze and HOAs radio show.
Low and behold, the Governor called The Florida Legislature back
into session, under the guise of fixing the insurance crisis,
but the condominium safety laws were created instead. Now we
have mandatory safety and inspection laws and finally, mandatory
reserves.
I’m not saying it happened because of me. I’m saying that I
pushed hard for these new laws because it was simply
unconscionable to allow things to stay the same after Champlain
Towers.
I know that as a result of these new laws, it will be
financially difficult for some people. For those people, all I
can tell you is that the dollar figure you were always paying
for assessments each month was a fake figure, an out an out
lie. To those people who live in a 55 and over condo and
thought that it was silly to put away money each month for a
roof you may never see in 20 years, you gout unlucky I
guess……YOU LIVED.
The truth is……..this is the fault of The Florida Legislature for
allowing developers to build beautiful condominiums and sell
them with fake budgets that did not include reserves. You were
never forced from the beginning to put away money for reserves
each month. Had condominium budgets always been required to
include reserves we would not be in the financial straits we are
in now.
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About
HOA & Condo Blog
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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 three decades and is the owner of
Glazer and Sachs, P.A. a five attorney law firm with
offices in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando.
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Eric is Board Certified by The Florida Bar in
Condominium and Planned Development Law.
Since 2009, Eric has been the host of Condo Craze
and HOAs, a weekly one hour radio show that airs at 11:00 a.m.
each Sunday on 850 WFTL.
See:
www.condocrazeandhoas.com.
Eric is the first attorney in the State of
Florida that designed a course that certifies condominium and
HOA residents as eligible to serve on a Board of Directors and
has now certified more than 20,000 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.
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