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STRICTER PROVISIONS FOR FINANCIAL REPORTS
By
Jan Bergemann
Published May 3, 2024
Owners
have the absolute right to see what happens to the money they
pay into the association coffers. And the Florida Legislature
agreed with stricter provisions regarding financial reports and
deadlines. Both bills,
HB 1021 (condominiums) and
HB 1203 (HOAs) contain language dealing with financial
reports and threaten with fines if not meeting the deadlines for
mailing or hand-delivering the financial reports on request as
required by statutes.
Already
in the past, with less strict language, the Division levied
serious fines to condo associations who violated the financial
report provisions. But let’s face it, the person who files the
complaint with the Division pays as much of the share of the
fine as the board member who failed to follow the law. That
leaves the question: Do they really punish the guilty parties,
or just everybody who owns property in the association? I have
heard board members saying – after the association was hit with
a hefty fine: “Well, it’s not really my money!”
Shouldn’t
we consider punishing just the guilty parties and not everybody
who happens to own property in the community?
For HOA
owners it’s even worse. Since Florida has no regulatory agency
for HOAs (FS 720), owners can’t just file a complaint in order
to enforce the laws, they have to file for litigation in court.
That will leave the question: Will property owners be willing to
spend maybe $20,000 - $30,000 in order to force a board to
follow the statutes regarding financial reports – hoping to get
the money back if the court rules that the owner is the
prevailing party in the lawsuit?
Will
these new provisions regarding FINANCIAL REPORTS
really help homeowners to understand what really happened to
their money?
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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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