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ASSOCIATION WEBSITE – A VALUABLE TOOL
By
Jan Bergemann
Published October 8, 2021
An
association website, used correctly, can be a very valuable tool
– if it’s in the right hands. For communities with more than 150
units it’s a statutory requirement – see FS 718.111(12)(g), but
it’s as well great for smaller communities.
Remember
the permanent fights over records requests and the cost of these
fights?
If your
community has a website that contains all the records listed in
FS 718.11(12) [or FS 720.303(4) for HOAs] on a password
protected site only accessible to owners, there is more or less
no more need for fights over record requests. It saves a lot of
time, money and resources.
It’s a
one-time expense, but once up and running it’s pretty easy to
keep up-to-date.
But
associations have to make sure that the website is in the name
of the association. I have heard in recent times from owners
that they had association websites run by the manager (or
management company) and that these websites “disappeared” after
the CAM was terminated. Especially some of the bigger management
companies seem to use these “tactics” as revenge for
getting terminated. It seems that it becomes more and more
common that at time of turn-over from one management company to
another, records seem to have a tendency to disappear – or get
lost – leaving the association with a serious problem that often
requires the services of an attorney – meaning extra cost to the
association.
Websites
with all the required records are a valuable tool -- and it’s
definitely worth the expense of creating these tools.
Communication between association and owners most often prevents
costly lawsuits that in the end help nobody but the attorneys.
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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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