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NOT ENOUGH SUCH CONVICTIONS!
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
September 2, 2016
We have all been talking about the story of the board president
who was convicted for embezzling association funds and sentenced
to five years in jail. “Ex-official
who stole from Tamarac homeowners association gets prison
sentence.”
But in all reality we should see such headlines more often,
because embezzlement happens a lot in many community
associations all over Florida.
The reasons:
1.)
The apathy of many owners who “don’t want to get involved”
– even if
their money is at risk and some of their neighbors asking for
help investigating missing funds. For many owners it seems to be
easier to call these owners “disgruntled” instead of helping
with really looking into the facts.
2.)
The attitude of many law enforcement agencies – especially state
attorney’s offices – who seem to think that stealing from
neighbors in community associations is a “trivial offense”
and should be dealt with in civil court. I am often amazed about
the attitude of certain state attorney’s offices dealing with
such complaints, even if the proof of embezzlement is handed to
them on a silver platter.
But there is another important reason why associations are
losing money: Boards fail to follow the laws and ignore FS
720.3033(5):
The association shall maintain
insurance or a fidelity bond for all persons who control or
disburse funds of the association. The insurance policy or
fidelity bond must cover the maximum funds that will be in the
custody of the association or its management agent at any one
time. As used in this subsection, the term “persons who control
or disburse funds of the association” includes, but is not
limited to, persons authorized to sign checks on behalf of the
association, and the president, secretary, and treasurer of the
association. The association shall bear the cost of any
insurance or bond. If annually approved by a majority of the
voting interests present at a properly called meeting of the
association, an association may waive the requirement of
obtaining an insurance policy or fidelity bond for all persons
who control or disburse funds of the association.
CCFJ, Inc. fought hard to have the Florida legislature
add this provision to the HOA Act in 2013 in order to
avoid serious financial losses if embezzlement and/or financial
fraud is discovered. We have seen association members suffering
serious financial losses because associations had to levy
special assessments in order to pay bills – bills that were left
unpaid because money was embezzled.
Homeowners should make sure that their association carries such
insurance or fidelity bond. It could save you lots of money
because embezzlement and/or financial fraud happens a lot more
often than the media reports!
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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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