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KNOWLEDGE
IS POWER!
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
April 10, 2015
As
our CCFJ Foundation website says: “KNOWLEDGE
IS POWER!”
Make no mistake: Being the board member of a community
association means that you are running a business – a business
with often quite a high budget – and lots of responsibilities.
A
board member – even if he/she is a volunteer – is in reality
responsible for the financial welfare of all the owners owning
property in the community. Many homeowners lost their homes
because they were unable to pay the special assessment caused by
the stupidity – or incompetence – of the association’s
board members. Ill-advised lawsuits and totally over-priced
contracts have caused boards to levy special assessments that
caused financial chaos for some homeowners.
Isn’t
it too much to ask if board members are required to attend a
seminar to learn the basics of community association management
and rules? Most of these seminars last no more than three hours
and are very informative. Even these seminars only touch just
the basics – more education should be required.
Signing
the DBPR “Sample
Homeowner’s Association Board Member Certification Form”
is nothing but an easy way out. Make no mistake: Most of these
board members who just sign the form to be eligible to serve on
the board have no clue what they are supposed to do. They “shoot
from the hip” and make up rules as they go along. The form
doesn’t even require these board members to have a basic
knowledge of the statutes regulating the association.
Admittedly,
it’s not easy to be a board member, especially if serving on a
board together with other board members who feel they have the
“discretion” to make up their own rules, this
“discretion” even allowing them to violate the
Florida
statutes. Some think they are the “Emperor of China” and
rule without even asking the other board members for their
opinion. Many of these power-hungry presidents forget that they
only have one vote on the board, like every other board member.
Honestly,
the bad guys are often not criminals or folks just willing to
violate the laws, they are only too often just plainly too
stupid to do the right thing. Too many of these board members
still serve on the board because they think it increases their
social standing, but are more interested in being called
Mr./Mrs. President than in doing some effective work.
Then
you often have “colleagues” serving with you on the board,
who plainly lack any knowledge and rather call other board
members, who try to remind them that there are laws to be
followed, ugly names instead of trying to do the right thing.
I
always liked former State Representative
Julio Robaina
’s statement: “If we
could pass a law against stupidity we would have less than 50%
of the problems we are facing now!”
In
my opinion all candidates for the office of board member should
be required to attend a board member certification seminar
before they even become eligible to be a candidate. Too much
harm can be done by board members who don’t know the laws and
rules. Attending a 3-hour seminar is the least that should be
expected from anybody willing to represent the interests of
his/her neighbors!
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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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