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The “EMINENT DOMAIN” BILL FOR CONDOS
By
Jan Bergemann
Published
May 23, 2014
When
Senator Steve Geller and Representative Elaine
Schwartz filed in 2007 a bill (H407/S 314)
they claimed would help condo owners dealing with serious
hurricane damages, it became quickly pretty obvious that there
was a lot more behind this bill than these two legislators
wanted the public to believe.
Don’t
forget, both of these legislators are attorneys by trade,
meaning they should have been able to read between the lines and
realize that this bill had some serious problems and would allow
greedy developers to kick owners, who had paid every bill they
were obligated to pay (mortgage, property tax and maintenance
dues), out of their homes.
CCFJ
immediately contacted these two legislators and asked them to
make the necessary changes during committee hearings, in order
to avoid these kinds of dangers to condo owners. But, as usual,
these legislators didn’t care and it became very obvious that
they knew full well that the wording of the bill would help
greedy developers (investors) to take charge of the association
and dissolve them – to the detriment of the condo owners. But
let’s be honest, many of these legislators – like Geller and
Schwartz – couldn’t care less about the welfare of their
constituents if promises of serious campaign funds are in play!
We
named the bill the “EMINENT
DOMAIN BILL” for condominiums – and the bill – after
being enacted in 2007 -- is doing exactly what we predicted from
the very beginning: Making condo owners homeless and leaving
them without a home, but with some big debts from the mortgage
since the developer only has to pay “fair
market value” for the unit, most often much less than the
remaining amount to be paid to the mortgage company (bank).
This
was just another bill to be filed under the headline: “ONLY
IN FLORIDA!”
We
still have too many legislators here in
Florida
who are willing to “kiss the developers’ butt” – to hell with these condo
owners who were “stupid” enough to buy such a condo.
And
we wonder why
Florida
has such a bad reputation among the folks from up North who are
contemplating the idea of moving south once they retire!
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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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