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HERE WE GO AGAIN….
By
Jan Bergemann
Published November 5, 2021
William Sklar, the chair of the Florida Bar “Task Force”
obviously hasn’t learned anything since he was the co-chair of
the HOA Task Force in 2004. He still follows the same line:
Protect the service providers – and who cares about the
financial welfare and safety of the families living in these
communities!
The RECOMMENDATION of the Task Force of the
Florida Bar, quickly assembled by the BAR in order to
protect their interests – and that of the parties they
represent. Just look at the members of the Task Force: All
attorneys from firms that represent developers.
There are two obvious “recommendations” that show that the Task
Force was not interested in the welfare of the owners:
1.) The recommendations clearly protect the developers: Reserve
funds should be created from DAY ONE! That’s why we
recommended to start funding reserves at the day when
the
Certificate of Occupancy
is
issued – and that the developer has to provide the first reserve
study. Two reasons developers don’t like these ideas: It creates
extra cost for them – and they can’t any longer sell potential
buyers the great bonus of low maintenance fees. They would have
to make sure that the buyer understands that monthly maintenance
fees include funding of reserves. It is imperative that reserve
funds are started on the first day of the creation of the
association in order to keep the monthly fees as low as
possible. If you wait 10 years before starting to fund the
reserves you will face again the problem of very high monthly
maintenance fees in order to create fully funded reserves.
2.) Waiver of Reserves: The Recommendation would allow owners
again to waive reserves – meaning we create the same problems we
had before: No reserves when needed! Even if the requirement to
waive reserves is raised to 75% of the voting interest present
at the meeting – it doesn’t change anything. A quorum required
is 30% -- and only ¾ of the owners present can vote to waive
reserves. Easy example: The association has 200 units – meaning
only 60 owners have to be present at the meeting in order to
create the necessary quorum. Figure it out: Only 45 owners have
to vote in favor of waiving the reserves – out of 200. We all
know how easy it will be to rally minimum 45 owners in favor of
waiving reserves, if – for example – fully funded reserves would
increase the monthly maintenance fees by $200.00.
The suggestion to allow waiving reserves again will create the
same result we are seeing now: Financial chaos in the buildings
when structural repairs are needed and special assessments have
to be levied in order to pay for these repairs. What follows are
liens and foreclosures and families kicked out of their homes
because they are unable to pay the special assessment. Is that
what we are trying to achieve?
Oh, by the way: Liens and foreclosures are great business for
the attorneys who made these recommendations!
Don’t be fooled by these “recommendations” of the Task Force of
the Florida Bar: These attorneys didn’t intend to protect owners
from another tragedy like we saw in Surfside. They are clearly
trying to protect their own financial interests.
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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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