The ten [10] proposed reforms are listed in Table 1 in descending order based on the desirability ratings.   The left-most column show the order in which those reforms appeared in the questionnaire.  A Spearman Rank Correlation Test value of 0.12 signaled that order in which the reforms appeared in the questionnaire did not influence respondents’ valuation of the desirability of those reforms.

1. All ten [10] reforms were highly desired with favor ratings ranging upward from 84.7% to 95.4%.

2. Average priorities ranged from 3 to 5.  However, many respondents did not assign priorities which implies that they deemed all ten [10] reforms about equally important as well as very desirable.  This inference is supported by comments in about priorities which are summarized in Table 3.

3. The favorable ratings of the proposed reforms were subjected to a statistical test to see how likely it was that those ratings were misleading in that the population from which the sample was drawn actually was indifferent about the proposed reforms.   If the population was indifferent, then most samples would assign ratings of 50%.  The t-test value found for each proposed reform exceeded 6. That signals that there was less than 1 chance in a million that the population was indifferent about each reform.

KEY FINDINGS FROM TABLE 2-A

Respondents were asked to characterize their communities in terms of seven traits. 

1. About 60% of the communities were HOAs.

2. Almost 46% of the communities were in south Florida [Broward, Miami-Dade or Palm Beach counties] while nearly 6% of the communities were in northern Florida.  Central and West Coast regions each had just over 18% of the communities with the East Coast accounting for the remaining 13% of the communities reporting.   Footnote 7  at the end of this report lists the counties in each region.

3. Each component of the seven community traits responded to a notably different degree than the other(s) according to the t-tests.

KEY FINDINGS FROM TABLE 2-B

Respondents were asked to characterize themselves in terms of seven traits. All of the differences within those traits turned out not to be notable save for board service.

1. Most of the respondents, 98.4%, were not attorneys. Less than 2% were attorneys. There were too few attorneys to analyze their responses separately.

2. Most of the respondents, 92.1%, were not community association managers [CAMs], but almost 8% were. 

3. Most of the respondents, 72.3%, were not members of Cyber Citizens for Justice, but nearly 8% were.

4. Almost 90% of the respondents liver year round in their community. The rest, 10.6%, were “snowbirds.”

5. Respondents were more often men, 62.5%, than women, 37.5%.

6. Slightly better than half of the respondents had served or were serving on the board of directors of a deed restricted community, not necessarily the one where they currently live.

7. Most of the respondents did not offer a comment but a surprisingly high 36.7% of them did so.

KEY FINDINGS FROM TABLE 3

Respondents’ comments were grouped into a dozen topics. Most, 77.5%, of the respondents only mentioned a single topic. However, 37 people or 22.5% commented about more than one. Those comments were tabularized alphabetically.

1. Seven [7] of the 12 topics, or just over half, garnered 12 or more comments. Those topics concerned: a specific community, bank liability, boards, the issue of a HOA agency and/or the DBPR, laws/legislation, a specific question in the questionnaire, and multiple issues.

2. One or two comments were made about seven of the ten [10] key questions in the questionnaire. Most of these comments indicated a need for careful phrasing of appropriate legislation.

KEY FINDINGS FROM TABLE 4-A

Table 4-A examined comments against community traits. 

1. Significantly fewer comments came from the east coast region of Florida than any other region. Each region showed a significant difference between whether or not a comment was made.

2. While the number of comments made between small and large communities wasn’t notably different, the difference between making or not making a comment was notably different in both small and large communities.

3. Finding 2 above also holds true for the other traits of communities, specifically: HOAs vs. Condos, those allowing or barring pets, those with or without a 55+ age restriction, employing or not employing a CAM and those where the developer does or doesn’t control the board of directors.

KEY FINDINGS FROM TABLE 4-B

Table 4-B examined comments against respondent traits. 

1. With only seven lawyers responding, it’s understandable that significantly fewer comments came from attorneys than non-lawyers in terms of both absolute numbers and percentages. 

2. Conversely, significantly more comments were made by: CAMs than non-CAMs, CCFJ members than non-members, women than men, full-time residents than part-timers and those who had no board service experience than those who did.

3. Additionally, the number of comments made or not made within each of the respondent traits was significantly different.