LAWYER ADVOCACY GROUPS STRUGGLE TO MAKE BAD BILL LOOK PALATABLE

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

Published June 29, 2010

For the lawyer advocacy groups like CALL (COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION LEADERSHIP LOBBY = Becker & Poliakoff) and CAN (COMMUNITY ADVOCACY NETWORK = Katzman Garfinkel and Berger) it takes some real efforts to make the new community association bill S1196 palatable for the folks who pay them good money to lobby for them. Don't forget, the retainer for the law firm of Becker &Poliakoff includes the membership in CALL.

This is the pertinent paragraph in the Retainer Agreement:

Fees & Benefits

The association's only fixed obligation is the annual fee of $200. The Agreement entitles your association to the following benefits:

1. Membership in "CALL," the Community Association Leadership Lobby, the statewide legislative advocacy organization that monitors legislation impacting associations and helps association leaders effectively communicate with legislators through the easy to use CALL (www.callbp.com) website and the services of the CALL's full-time lobbyist in Tallahassee.

And this agreement is being used by Becker & Poliakoff and lobbyist Travis Moore to claim to legislators that they are representing hundreds of thousands of homeowners and condo owners. And our legislators seem to be "impressed" by these numbers.

Let's look at the facts. Some of the board members and owners don't even know what CALL is and what it stands for. It actually is an attorney lobbying group financed with money from association members who often totally disagree with the laws pushed by B & P and Travis Moore, but don't even know that their money is being used to pay this lobbyist who pushes anti-owner bills.

This year the originally filed bill S 1196 came out of the pen of Becker & Poliakoff, as stated by Travis Moore. To be very frank, only dictatorial board members can be willing to push such a horrible bill that makes living in community associations even more expensive.

Let's face it, despite all the fancy headlines in the media -- partially posted by the leaders of CALL and CAN -- word gets around that it is a bad bill that will do absolutely nothing to help associations/owners deal with the real problem: Budget deficits caused by unpaid dues and/or foreclosures.

Here are some of the quotes that make me wonder why these folks willfully mislead Florida 's citizens:

"This legislation does one very, simple, smart thing, it empowers the residents of condominiums throughout the state of Florida ," said Governor Charlie Crist when publicly signing the bill in Ft. Lauderdale.
"New law lets HOA's go after banks," according to Senator Mike Fasano on FOX13
"The new bill makes it real easy to collect unpaid dues from renters living in units where the owners don't pay," according to attorney Matt Firestone on FOX35, Orlando.
"It's going to force investors to become more responsible in paying the amounts due to the associations. And this will really help associations in collecting those important dollars," said attorney Ben Solomon.
"Law offers relief from financial impacts of foreclosures." screamed the headline of a newspaper article.

Relying on press releases from the law firms, reporters have claimed that the bill was named "The Condo Relief Act." If they want to use "Relief Act" for this bill, they should call it "The Community Association Attorney Relief Act." No provision in the new bill can really be used without the help of an attorney.

But the in my opinion the most misleading explanation comes from attorney Gary Poliakoff himself.

The following is a summary of a few of the provisions of the bill:

Foreclosing lenders of condominium units will now be liable for up to 12 months of assessments. The current law limits lender liability to six months. The Homeowners Association Act already requires lenders to pay up to 12 months.

[Column in the Palm Beach Post June 18, 2010]

Poliakoff conveniently forgets to mention that the provision was always limited to the lesser of:

1.) 6 months -- was changed to 12. (Line 1254)

2.) One percent of the original mortgage debt. (Line 1257)

In a wide majority of foreclosure cases in the past, the 1% cap was lower than 6 months of dues. Meaning: This change means absolutely nothing.

I'm wondering why these attorneys are so afraid that they are willing to mislead even their clients. Maybe they are afraid that these folks, who paid good money to lobby for bills to help with the big problem of collecting unpaid dues, finally realize that they have been had and they paid instead to lobby for a bill that only helps attorneys and community association managers?

But these board members should really wake up and stop paying good money for bad bills. It's time to wake up and smell reality!