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IS THE BUDGET READY?
By
Jan Bergemann
Published November 10, 2023
Well,
hopefully your association has finished working on the budget,
held the necessary budget meeting and is telling you how much
your maintenance fees are increasing on January 1, 2024.
Especially owners of units in hi-rise condos will have a bad
surprise, seeing their monthly fees increasing by quite a
margin.
I am
sure, the new monthly maintenance fees will kill some of the
owners’ financial means and we will see either many condos up
for sale – or foreclosures.
Especially condo associations where the owners voted down fully
funded reserves year for year will see a big number of sales –
or even foreclosures.
Hopefully, the people who worked on your budget added a ”big”
line item named “BAD DEBT” in the budget proposal,
in order to avoid the association running out of money on autumn
-- unable to pay the bills, forcing the board to levy a special
assessment which will create more financial havoc among the
owners who were still paying their monthly maintenance fees.
Insurance
premiums and the provisions of SB 154 will drive up the monthly
maintenance fees, causing families to lose their homes.
Let’s see
if the Florida Legislature – in its infinite wisdom – has been
enacting bills in this week’s special session that will quickly
lower the property insurance bills.
TIME WILL TELL!
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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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