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WILL THE NEW RECORD INSPECTION LAWS REALLY HELP?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published May 24, 2024
The Florida Legislature really went
out of its way to make sure that owners are able to see all the
public records of their association. From mandatory websites to
record inspection provisions – everything is in the bills that
were enacted by the legislature with nearly unanimous majority.
Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to sign these bills into law
in the very near future. The provisions in these bills will be
effective July 1, 2024.
The ball is now in the court of the
Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes.
They were given the power to enforce these newly created laws,
and were given lots of money to hire new investigators.
BUT WILL THE DIVISION REALLY DO WHAT THEY WERE TOLD TO DO BY
THESE NEW LAWS?
That really is the big unknown factor
that will decide if there will really be more transparency in
Florida’s community associations. It’s about time.
Boards were able to hide financial
records from owners and even sued owners who “dared” to make
record inspection requests. In one case the board even went to a
Federal Court in order to prevent owners from seeing the
financial records.
Time will tell if all these new
provisions – hoping to create more transparency – will really do
what the Florida Legislature wanted them to do!
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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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