|
Article
Courtesy of The Sun Sentinel
By Joe
Kollin
Published February 6,
2008
Despite
all the horror stories you read about condo and homeowner associations,
99.8 percent of owners in Florida apparently have no problem with their
boards.
That means just a fraction of 1 percent of associations are giving them
all a bad name, according to state figures.
During 2007, unit owners filed 2,482 complaints about associations with
the state Department of Business & Professional Regulation, the agency
that oversees condos. There were 1,394,467 condo units in Florida on Dec.
31.
In
Broward County, 99.7 percent of unit owners apparently are happy because
last year the state received 642 complaints. There are 241,867 units in
Broward.
In Palm Beach County, the happiness quotient is 99.8 percent, based on 310
complaints and 177,677 units.
"The vast majority of associations are well-run," said Art
Smith, who for 30 years has been president of the 728-apartment Pine
Island Ridge G Association in Davie.
Michael Cochran, the state's chief condo regulator, said many unit owners
forget directors are their neighbors who take the time to volunteer.
"Too often, what gets lost on people is that directors are unit
owners elected by fellow unit owners to represent them," he said.
"They are not some sort of evil empire."
The figures aren't an exact measure of owner happiness, but they are the
closest thing kept by the state. They don't show multiple complaints filed
by an individual or multiple complaints against an association, according
to Sam Farkas, a department spokesman.
They also don't show if one or 100 owners signed a single complaint, said
Jan Bergemann, president of Cyber Citizens for Justice, a volunteer
organization representing owners. If 100 owners signed one complaint, 99
would wrongly be considered happy, he said.
Another way of looking at the figures is that complaints were filed
against 10 percent of the state's condo associations. That's based on
25,006 associations in the state. But the same caveats apply.
The figures are only for condos. The state doesn't regulate homeowner
associations, so it doesn't keep those records. Experts say the numbers
are probably similar.
What's the secret of a well-run community?
"We don't spend our days looking for problems, but when they come our
way we do something about it," said Dr. Cheryl Hill, president of the
164-unit homeowner association at Nova Village, also in Davie. Irwin York,
vice president of Crescent Lake of Boca Raton, a homeowner association
with 224 single-family houses, boasted that his board manages to keep the
community running efficiently with a low monthly maintenance and very few
complaints.
"You know not everyone's going to like what you do, but everyone does
appreciate your efforts," he said. "The proof is less and less
people show up at board meetings because, as they say, if it isn't broken,
why fix it?"
Cochran, the condo regulator, said good associations have two things in
common: Directors have learned their jobs and they communicate with
owners.
His common denominators for bad boards: They don't educate themselves and
don't get involved, relying too much on paid managers.
Q&A
Q. The boards at two condo communities plan to hire
individuals as association managers. Because several owners didn't like
previous managers, they asked to be part of the selection process. Both
boards refused. At one community, owners wanted a voice in the hiring
process. At the other, owners wanted to sit in and watch the board
interview candidates but not participate.
A. Rosa M. de la Camara, a Miami attorney who specializes in community
association law, responds: If the board meets to interview a prospective
manager, or to handle any other condominium business, and more than a
quorum of directors is present, the meeting must be open to owners. If
less than a quorum meets for interviews or other association business —
whether to circumvent the open-meeting requirement, or simply out of
convenience — the board cannot make any decisions. Decisions can come
only at a duly called meeting open to all owners.
Owners have the right to attend and speak on agenda items at board
meetings, she said. Owners can and should give their input, but the final
decision is the board's. Remember, she added, "Owners always have the
last word by voting on the directors they have confidence in to represent
them."
|