Florida ROC : Florida Mobile Home & RV Lawyer & Attorney : Scott Gordon : Lutz Bobo Telfair Eastman Gabel & Lee Law Firm : FL Condo & Homeowners Associations

It appears that, effective July 1, 2010, members and employees of condominium associations and mandatory homeowners' associations in Florida will be entitled to some additional privacy protections thanks to Senate Bill 1196. 

The Florida legislature, through Senate Bill 1196, has revised Florida Statute Sections 718.111(12) and 720.303(5) to provide that the following records--in addition to those already protected--shall not be accessible to condominium unit owners or subdivision parcel owners:

• Personnel records of association employees, including, but not limited to, disciplinary, payroll, health, and insurance records
• Social security numbers, driver's license numbers, credit card numbers, electronic mailing addresses, telephone numbers, emergency contact information, any addresses of a unit or parcel owner other than as provided to fulfill the association's notice requirements, and other personal identifying information of any person, excluding the person's name, unit or parcel designation, mailing address, and property address
• Any electronic security measure that is used by the association to safeguard data, including passwords
• The software and operating system used by the association which allows manipulation of data, even if the unit or parcel owner owns a copy of the same software used by the association.

However, for some reason, Florida Statute Section 719.104(2), which governs the official records of a cooperative association, was not amended by Senate Bill 1196.  

Members and employees of cooperatives thus will now have less privacy protection than their counterparts in condominiums and subdivisions.

I assume that this was not intended by Florida's legislators and that a "glitch bill" will be introduced at the next session in Tallahassee to ensure members and employees in all categories of resident owned communities are given equal privacy protection. 

In the meantime, members of cooperatives might want to bring this to the attention of their state legislators.

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I'm posting links for my blog readers to two articles from last Sunday's Sarasota Herald -Tribune and a story that was summarized in a recent edition of the Florida Manufactured Housing Association's newsletter.

• The first article from the Herald-Tribune focuses on the tragic consequences of an accident involving a golf cart.  I've covered this topic in the past but I remain very concerned that many residents in the communities we work with still do not understand that golf carts are vehicles and not toys. 
• With one hurricane (and the third named storm) spinning in the Eastern Pacific and several systems having already been investigated in the Atlantic, the second article in Sunday's Herald-Tribune is extremely timely.   It details the devastating effects of storm surge, which causes more deaths than any other feature of a hurricane.
• The battle being fought between neighbors at the Americana Cove manufactured housing community in Pinellas County is the subject of the third article from the St. Petersburg Times.   We've spoken at our seminars on many occasions about the issues facing the residents at Americana and there are no easy answers in this situation.

We'll get back to discussing how Senate Bill 1196 will impact resident-owned communities in my next entry.    In the meantime, I hope you find these articles interesting and informative.

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The Florida legislature has provided managers and boards of condominium associations, cooperative associations and mandatory homeowners associations with some help in collecting delinquent payments from unit owners and association members.

Senate Bill 1196, which goes into effect on July 1, 2010, provides that if a unit or parcel is occupied by a tenant and the unit owner or parcel owner is delinquent in paying any monetary obligation due to the association, the association may demand that the tenant pay to the association "the future monetary obligations" related to the unit or parcel.  For some reason, condominium and cooperative associations are required to make a written demand on the tenant while the language applying to Chapter 720 homeowners associations does not seem to require a written demand.  I assume that "future monetary obligations" refers to the tenant's obligations to pay rent to the unit or parcel owner.   In all cases, the demand is continuing in nature and the tenant must pay the monetary obligations (again, I assume this is the amount to be otherwise paid by the tenant to the unit or parcel owner) until:

• The association releases the tenant from making any further payments to the association
• The tenant discontinues tenancy in the unit or parcel

Condominium and cooperative associations are required to mail written notice to the unit owner of the association's demand that the tenant make payments to the association but again no such requirement seems to be included in the provisions for mandatory homeowners associations.  

A tenant who acts in good faith in response to a written demand from an association and pays his or her rent to that association is immune from any claim from the unit or parcel owner.

In addition, the revised statutes now appears to allow ROCs to evict tenants for failure to pay monetary obligations pursuant to the residential landlord-tenant provisions of Florida Statutes. 

There is a good deal more involved in these amendments and I'll post further entries on them this summer.  

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Governor Crist signed Senate Bill 1196 into law last week and I'll be posting several entries about the amendments to Florida's statutes affecting condominiums, cooperatives, and mandatory homeowners' associations in the coming weeks. 

I'd like to first mention a provision in Senate Bill 1196 that corrects a "glitch" in the statutes governing cooperative associations.

SB 1196 amends Florida Statute Section 719.106(1)(d)6 to provide that, unless a cooperative association's bylaws provide otherwise, a board member appointed or elected to fill a vacancy on the board that occurs before the expiration of the term serves for the full remaining term of the seat being filled.   Although the Florida Administrative Code Section that expanded on F.S. 719.106(1)(d) specifically provides for a vacant seat being filled for the full remaining term, because the statute itself was silent on the issue, there was some uncertainty as to whether the vacancy was filled for the full term or only until the next annual meeting.   This amendment removes any potential inconsistency between condominium associations and cooperative associations on the issue of filling a vacant position on the board that occurs before the expiration of the term.

SB 1196 further amends the statutes governing retrofitting for fire sprinkler systems in both condominiums and cooperatives by prohibiting local authorities from requiring completion of fire sprinkler system retrofitting before the end of 2019.   This is a five year extension from the date provided for prior to this amendment.   The association membership still has the right to "opt out" of retrofitting.

SB 1196 also adds several categories of information that is not to be made available to members or parcel owners in mandatory homeowners associations.

In my next entry, I'll discuss some changes found in SB 1196 that are intended to help ROC boards and managers deal with our foreclosure crisis.

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