WISHING YOU ALL A HAPPY –

 AND SUCCESSFUL -- YEAR 2014

By Jan Bergemann 
President, Cyber Citizens For Justice, Inc.

Published January 1, 2014

A new year has started: Hopefully a year that will bring Florida's homeowners finally the consumer protection they rightfully deserve.

CCFJ, Inc. has DRAFTED A BILL that will create the much needed changes homeowners living in mandatory homeowners' associations are requesting since many years:

• Creates the Division of Florida Condominiums, Homeowners’ Associations, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes. Creates consumer protection by adding homeowners’ associations to the jurisdiction of the Division, using the exact language from FS 718.501. Creates FS 720.3021-720.3029.
• Creates the Office of the Community Association Ombudsman
• Defines the words “Special Assessment.”
• Amends FS 720.302: Purposes, scope, and application
• Clarifies notice requirements for meetings that deal with special assessments, increases in assessments, or amendments to governing documents.

• Allows fining only if original governing documents so allow; a fine can not become a lien.

• Rewrites FS 720.306 using language from FS 718.112 to amend provisions for annual meeting, election procedures, proxy voting and board member eligibility.

• Amends FS 720.307(5) – clarifying the associations FS 720.307 applies to.

We will be working hard to achieve our goal of adding these important provisions to Florida Statutes FS 720 to finally create fair elections in HOAs and make the existing laws much easier to enforce. Giving the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes jurisdiction over homeowners' associations is not about creating more "government," it's all about consumer protection against the many abuses the media is reporting about on a daily basis. Being able to enforce the existing laws should not only be in the hands of a few owners rich enough to afford litigation, it should be affordable for each owner. And it will save as well lots of money for associations who are permanently involved in expensive litigation.

We want to build on our success from last year when our proposed bill H7119 was signed into law by Governor Rick Scott!

The requirement of all mandatory HOAS to REGISTER WITH THE DIVISION gave us finally some numbers to work with. As of December 28, 2013 the Division reported that 13057 Homeowners' Associations with a total of 2,449,770 lots have registered. If HOAs will have to pay into the Florida Condominiums, Homeowners’ Associations, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes Trust Fund we can even ask the legislators to lower the annual fees for all homes and condo-units from $4 to $2. There will be still enough funds in the Trust Fund to create a “Cadillac” of a regulatory agency that will take care of much needed consumer-protection. This is a win-win situation for all owners in community associations in Florida.

In order to achieve our goals we have again hired the services of Richard Pinsky from Akerman Senterfitt, who did in years past an excellent job of pushing our agenda in Tallahassee. But he can only be effective if we all help by contacting our legislators and promote our bill. We will never be able to outspend the opposing industry -- but we still need lots of donations to pay for our cost of lobbying for the bill. OUR POWER IS IN NUMBERS! With other words: We all need to participate!

My wish to all of you: Contact your local legislators and the legislators sitting on committees that will hear our bill. A lot is at stake for all members of mandatory community associations. If you are not a MEMBER OF CCFJ, INC. yet, please join our organization or subscribe to our CONSTANT CONTACT E-MAIL LIST.

Please help us to achieve our goal:

FAIRNESS IN ASSOCIATIONS!

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