February ROC Seminars Are Now Scheduled

Posted on January 20, 2010 by Scott Gordon

The dates and locations for the resident-owned community seminars we'll be conducting in February are now set.   We'll discuss helpful hints for conducting annual membership meetings and other unit owner meetings and will also provide some insights into the importance of screening potential owners, occupants, and guests in your communities.   We'll also leave time for our traditional "open forum" to answer general questions from the attendees.

Our first series of ROC seminars for this season were very well attended with lots of participation from our attendees.   We expect an even greater turnout for these upcoming events.   As always, there's no charge to attend and the refreshments are also provided free of charge.  The dates and locations of our February presentations are:

  • Monday, February 1 at Francis I Mobile Estates in Sebring
  • Wednesday, February 10 at Windward Isle in Sarasota
  • Thursday, February 11at Marco Shores in Naples
  • Wednesday, February 24 at Caribbean Isles in Apollo Beach

All of these seminars will be held in the clubhouses of our host communities and will start at 10 a.m.   We expect to wrap up the seminars by 12:30 p.m. at the latest.

Please call my assistants, Karen Midlam or Kathy Sawdo at 941-951-1800 or email them at kmidlam@lutzbobo.com or ksawdo@lutzbobo.com if you are interested in attending and provide them with the following information:

  • The event your community wishes to attend
  • The number of attendees from your community
  • Whether you will need directions to the seminar

Our seminars are always a great opportunity to network with residents at other resident owned communities.   We hope to see you at one of these events.

 

 

Tags: , , ,

ROC battles over meeting agendas may be a symptom of bigger problems

Posted on January 10, 2010 by Scott Gordon

What can the directors or other members of a ROC do when the President refuses a request to bring an item before the board for consideration?

There are a number of factors that should be considered in answering this question:

  • Traditionally, the President (or the board's chairperson) has been given the task of setting the agenda for meetings of the directors.  However, it's also customary that the President consult with the other directors when setting that agenda.
  • There's certainly nothing wrong with allowing the President and the other members of the board to exercise a reasonable amount of discretion in setting the agenda.   Clearly, no purpose is served by allowing an issue that has already been decided by the board to have that issue placed on the agenda simply because a board member or other resident disagrees with the board's decision.
  • However, the continual refusal of a President to place an item on the board meeting agenda may be a symptom of dangerous divisions within the board and the entire community.   When a ROC board member complains to me that his or her President will not place an item on the board meeting agenda, that's a warning sign that requires my contacting the ROC manager to determine the reasons for the refusal to place the item on the agenda.    Quite often, I'll learn from the community's manager that there are legitimate reasons for the President's position and at the same time will discover that personality conflicts or other issues are preventing the board from effectively governing the community.

If the President's refusal to place an item on the agenda is not justified, board members should review the association's bylaws.   The board members themselves usually appoint the association's officers, including the President, and a President that refuses to listen to a majority of his or her board members runs the risk of being removed from his office by his or her fellow board members.   While he or she would remain on the board, that removed President would no longer be able to unilaterally control the agenda.

I'll be posting the dates and locations of our seminars for February and March in my next blog entry.   We've got some exciting topics to cover and hope you'll be able to attend one of them.

Tags: , , , , ,

ROCs and the Foreclosure Crisis

Posted on January 3, 2010 by Scott Gordon

The headline of Sunday's edition of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reads "Condo Groups in Financial Pain".  The story accompanying that headline details the severe economic problems many condominium associations face as a result of the ongoing foreclosure crisis.   The article is well worth reading and contains examples of how several associations are attempting to survive a substantial decrease in their members and maintenance fees.

Our resident owned communities, for the most part, have not been severely impacted by the foreclosure crisis.  One of the reasons for this is that the ROCs we work with truly are resident owned--our ROC members customarily live in their homes for at least part of the year (or have one or more members of their family in the home).   In other words, very few of the homes in any of the ROCs we represent can  be characterized as "investment properties".

Nonetheless, I'd like to offer a few suggestions that may help ROC managers and board members better deal with problems arising from residents that fail to make timely payments of rents, maintenance fees or assessments:

  1. Given the current economic climate, it's important to strongly encourage all residents to make payments when they are due.   I suggest a policy that should be developed and consistently and uniformly followed to send written notices to all delinquent members no later than 5 to 10 days after payment is due.    Many of the rights given to ROCs by the Florida Statutes to file legal actions or record liens for unpaid assessments and fees are triggered by providing written notice to the homeowner and the sooner this notice can be given the sooner the association can exercise its statutory rights.
  2. The association should not be shy about getting its attorney involved early in the process to assist in recording liens and the legal actions that may be needed to protect the association's interests.  While there are certainly expenses involved in these legal remedies, it's quite often necessary to send a message to the members of the community that the ROC board and manager will do whatever it takes within the limits of the law to collect delinquent fees and rents owed to the community.,
  3. When the association is named as a defendant in a foreclosure action filed against one of its members by an institutional lender, I always advise the association to answer that foreclosure complaint.  The association's filing of that answer ensures that the association will receive copies of all of the important pleadings that will be filed in that law suit, including the certificate of title that is issued to the person or company that purchases the home at the foreclosure sale.   It's very important that the association determine the new owner of the home as quickly as possible as Florida statutes quite often require that new owner to pay at least a portion of the unpaid maintenance fees or assessments to the association.   The association may have no way to quickly determine the name of the new owner if it has not filed its response to that foreclosure action.

Let's hope that 2010 brings us all heath, prosperity and happiness and that the "foreclosure crisis" is just a dim memory by this time next year.

 

 

 

 

Tags: , , ,