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MASTER ASSOCIATION? ANOTHER INSTITUTION EATING YOUR MONEY!
By
Jan Bergemann
Published October 12, 2018
As if a simple home
or condo owners’ association isn’t enough burden on your
finances, some communities even feature “MASTER
ASSOCIATIONS.”
We always hear from
legislators when complaining about problems in our communities:
“Vote the BUMS out!”
Well, thanks for the
good advice, but that’s much easier said than done. It’s already
tricky in simple associations – recent changes to the Condo Act
FS 718 made it even more difficult. It’s nearly impossible in
quite a few master associations.
In most master
associations you, as an owner, don't even have the right to
directly elect the members of the master association board. In
reality you don’t even have any influence in seating these board
members.
With other words: “Voting
the BUMS out” doesn’t even work in master associations.
And if it isn’t
enough to follow all the rules in your association, master
associations most often do have a separate set of rules, rules
that are often very different than the rules of the single
associations that are being part of the master association.
You know that I am
not a friend of this whole community association system – I
honestly believe it can’t work in favor of the owners – but
adding the additional burden of a master association to this
feature is in my opinion an additional burden, not only on your
finances, but as well on your daily life.
My advice to
everybody: AVOID THESE DOUBLE WHAMMYS!
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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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