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LACK OF CONDO BOARD MEMBERS?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published May 17, 2024
Financial
hardship will cause many unit-owners to complain to the sitting
board members – and are very often blaming the board members for
the financial hardship caused by required inspections,
construction cost and high property insurance premiums.
But these
unit-owners are barking up the wrong tree. Former Florida
statutes required the owners to vote against fully funded – or
just partially funded – reserves. Actually, the unit-owners are
actually to blame for the total lack of sufficient reserves in
many of the older condo buildings.
I’m
already hearing and reading about owners in the process of
recalling the board. These owners should be aware that even a
new board can’t change the statutes or lower the insurance
premiums.
For many
years – starting in 2006, CCFJ lobbied for mandatory reserves,
protected by strict enforcement. But the “industry lobby” (like
CAI) always opposed mandatory fully funded reserves – and they
were able to convince the legislators that fully funded reserves
are creating financial problems for many condo owners.
That was
until the collapse of the Champlain Tower South in Surfside
collapsed, killing 98 people. In order to protect other hi-rises
from suffering a similar fate the legislature enacted new laws –
laws that will cost owners in older buildings who year-for-year
voted against fully funded reserves an arm and a leg – and even
possibly their home.
All this
financial chaos in many condo associations may create a problem
in finding volunteers willing to run for the association board.
I think
it’s finally time for owners with business experience to run for
the board, using business sense to manage the association. In
the past too many of the board members were sitting on the board
figuring that being a board member will improve their social
standing in the community without having any kind of business
experience.
Condo
associations are a business, quite a few of them with million
dollar budgets. And just relying on the so-called experts – CAMs
and attorneys – is not necessarily a recipe for success.
Remember, these folks are in it for the money, and they want to
get as much of the owners’ money as possible.
In this
time of need board members and unit-owners should work together
trying to solve the many problems condo associations are now
facing. Fighting each other will only create more problems,
without finding necessary solutions to help as many unit-owners
as possible from losing their home.
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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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