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TO BE CONTINUED: THE FIGHT
BETWEEN LAWYERS AND CAMS!
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
June 19, 2015
I may sound like a TV station: Repeats, repeats – and more
repeats! And I can only repeat: The fight between lawyers and
CAMs is all about money, definitely not about the welfare of the
property owners whose money these “professionals” are fighting
about.
I have heard the weirdest arguments why CAMs should be allowed
to do certain legal work. One totally wrong argument: Having the
CAMs do the work can save a lot of money for the association.
CAMs are just that: Managers with no legal background! And most
CAM contracts contain clauses that require the association to
pay for the legal defense of a CAM – even if he/she made serious
mistakes. Do you call that: Saving Money?
And in recent times we see more and more CAM firms holding board
certification seminars – and the DBPR even blesses these events
and lists them on their website as Approved Education
Providers.
Make no mistake:
Nothing wrong if the CAM holding the seminar would just read a
pre-prepared statement, stating the statutes etc. But that’s not
what these seminars are really all about.
The fact that people
are willing to attend these seminars instead of just signing the
Condominium Association Board Member Certification Form
– the way out for the “lazy” folks who already “know it
all” – is the opportunity to ask questions from a legal expert.
And that’s where the
seminar turns into an “unlicensed practice of law” – when the
CAMs start to interpret the laws and/or governing docs.
With other words –
and as usual – the DBPR is watering down well-meant laws enacted
by the Florida legislature intended to protect the rights of
Florida’s property owners.
There are lots of
good CAMs out there, but there are as well a lot of total morons
among them who might have won their license on the County Fair.
You wouldn’t believe a lot of statements some of these CAMs are
making. And they are not ashamed to put their nonsense in
writing.
But good or bad,
CAMs don’t have neither the legal training nor the license to
practice law in Florida.
With other words:
Let the CAMs do the managing and let the lawyers do the
"lawyering". Isn’t that what the names of these professions
actually imply?
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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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