Last week I posted an entry about attempts by some members of Florida’s legislature to eliminate the  regulation of Community Association Managers as well as the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes and (for good measure) end mandatory non-binding arbitration for certain disputes between owners and the associations governing their communities.

Proposed Committee Bill BCAS 11-01 moved quickly through the Business and Consumer Affairs Committee of Florida’s House of Representatives and was then assigned a bill number, becoming House Bill (HB) 5005.   According to reports from Tallahassee, HB 5005 was being "fast tracked" and was destined to breeze through one or two other House committees. There was concern that HB 5005 would then join up with a companion Senate Bill and would be voted on and approved by both the House and the Senate before many of those most affected by this legislation would have been made aware of what was occurring in Florida’s capital.

However, during the past week, HB 5005 somehow jumped off that "fast track".   Apparently, HB 5005 entered the Economic Affairs Committee of Florida’s House of Representatives as a 280 plus page juggernaut and exited that committee as a much less imposing 63 page piece of legislation.

Substitute HB 5005 preserves the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes as well as the mandatory non-binding arbitration program and maintains the laws providing for the regulation and licensing of Community Association Managers.

I would assume that our legislators heard from more than a few organizations over the past week or so (including the Federation of Mobile Home Owners and the Community Associations Institute).  I also have no doubt that a noticeable segment of the over three million residents of Florida ROCs made their feelings known to our representatives in Tallahassee.  

At least for now, HB 5005 is no longer a bitter pill for resident owned communities in Florida to swallow.  

We’ll be presenting the last series of this season’s ROC seminars during the end of March and the month of April. 

Our first two have been scheduled and here are the dates and locations:

  • Wednesday, March 30th at Piney Point in Ellenton
  • Friday, April 1st at Lake Bonnet Village in Avon Park

These events will start at 10 a.m. and we usually end around noon.  Two of the topics we’ll be covering are "Top Ten Reasons to Update Your Community’s Governing Documents" and "Reasonable Accommodations Under the Fair Housing Act".

We’ll also provide you with legislative updates (which should be very interesting!) and leave time for our customary "open forum".

As always, attendance is free, as are the refreshments and you’ll enjoy meeting and greeting fellow ROC residents.   Please rsvp by emailing Karen Midlam at kmidlam@lutzbobo.com, Kathy Sawdo at ksawdo@lutzbobo.com or me at sgordon@lutzbobo.com.

I’ll also be speaking at the Mid-Florida ROC meeting on the morning of April 19th at Country Club Manor in Eustis.  I’ve had the pleasure of speaking at the most recent meetings of both the ROC Forum (last week at Four Seasons in Largo) and SWFROC (earlier this week at Carriage Village in North Ft. Myers) and also spoke about Advance Care Directives last week at Golf Lakes in Bradenton.  Thanks to all of those communities for their hospitality!

We’re finalizing the dates and locations for seminars in Sarasota County and Lee and Collier Counties and I’ll post them on the blog next week.

 

I’ve spent part of the past few days in email correspondence and telephone and person to person discussions about Proposed Committee Bill (PCB) BCAS 11-01 with fellow community association attorneys, ROC managers, and concerned board members.

As you may already know, earlier this week, the Business and Consumer Affairs Subcommittee of the Florida House of Representatives (by a 10 to 5 vote) passed PCB 11-01.  This bill will now be assigned a number and will be scheduled for additional committee hearings.   The concern is that this bill is on a fast track and will not have to undergo deliberations in more than one or two other House subcommittees and that, while no companion bill has been filed in the Florida Senate (at least as of earlier today), that Senate companion bill will be forthcoming in the very near future.

So what’s the big deal about PCB 11-01?

How about these for starters–within this proposed bill’s 281 pages, you’ll find provisions that:

  • Eliminate many agencies that license and regulate numerous professions in Florida, including Community Association Managers
  • Eliminate what appears to be all or at least a substantial porton of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes
  • Eliminate the mandatory non-binding arbitration provisions found in Florida’s statutes governing condominium and cooperative associations

Please check out the full text of PCB 11-01 if you want to verify the incredibly far-reaching language that’s now being considered by Florida’s lawmakers.  

If you are a homeowner or condominium owner in a resident owned community, you might want to contact your state legislators about this bill.

I’ll have another entry later this week.

 

 

 

I was just forwarded this article from last Saturday’s Washington Post.   I’ll let the story speak for itself and hope you enjoy reading it.  

Perhaps this cautionary tale should be prominently displayed on the bulletin boards in all of our resident-owned communities as an extreme example of what can happen when too many members decide that they don’t have the time or desire to accept leadership responsibilities.

Have a great week and keep this community in mind the next time you want to complain about your ROC’s problems!

 

 

I’ve been spending a good deal of time recently attending the annual membership meetings of a number of the ROCs we represent and helping many of our communities prepare for these meetings.

I thought I’d list a few reminders for board members and managers of condominium and cooperative associations preparing for annual meetings:

  • The annual meeting is a meeting of the members–it’s not a board meeting.   While it’s common for the board members at the annual meeting to sit and face the unit owners, the directors should remember that it’s the membership that will be voting on the issues on the agenda.
  • The agenda should concisely and clearly list what business will be considered by the membership.  Only items on the agenda can be considered by the members.
  • Ballots are NOT proxies and cannot be used to establish a quorum.   While only twenty per cent of the unit owners are needed to cast ballots in order to conduct an election of the association’s directors, other items that require the approval of the unit owners at the annual meeting must occur at a meeting where there is a quorum of the membership’s voting interests present.  That quorum requirement is usually a simple majority of the voting interests.
  • As we all know, the quorum requirement can be satisfied through the use of proxies that allow a unit owner who does not attend the meeting to appoint a proxy holder to cast that absent unit owner’s vote.   Florida statutes governing condominium associations and cooperative associations allow both limited and general proxies to be used to help establish a quorum.

Occasionally, a cooperative or condominium association will have an annual meeting where the unit owners will not be voting on any item that would have to be included on a limited proxy form.  Communities that are fully funding reserves and conducting annual audits would thus not be voting to waive those requirements and might have no other issues requiring a unit owner vote requiring limited proxies.  However, managers and board members in these communities should still deliver a general proxy form to the unit owners and take great care to stress to the membership the importance of properly completing and returning those general proxies.   Keep in mind that if the unit owners decide that there’s no reason ton attend the annual meeting (since "nothing important" is happening) and not enough of those unit owners return completed proxies to the association, the association may not be able to conduct any official business at the annual meeting because a quorum was not obtained.

Hopefully, problems of this nature will remain extremely rare in Florida’s resident owned communities.

We’ll be posting the dates and locations of this season’s last set of seminars as well as several speaking engagements within the next two weeks and hope you’ll be able to attend one of those events.

 

 

 

 

I cringe every time a member of a resident owned condominium or cooperative association mentions that an event has been scheduled to "meet the candidates" running for the board of directors of that community. 

It’s clear from the Florida Statutes governing the election of directors in condominium associations and cooperative associations that there is a very specific process that must be followed.  For example, if a candidate requests that the association include an information sheet with the election materials to be sent to the unit owners, that sheet must be no larger than 8 and 1/2 inches by 11 inches, and must be furnished by the candidate to the association at least 35 days before the election.

The applicable Florida Administrative Code sections are even more specific and make it clear that the role of the association is to remain completely impartial in regards to any and all candidates.   Both cooperative associations and condominium associations are expressly prohibited from editing, altering, or otherwise modifying the content of that information sheet and the original copy of that sheet becomes part of the association’s official records. 

The intent that the association remain completely impartial during the election process is also evident in the requirements set forth in the Florida Administrative Code that the association must obtain the consent of two or more candidates before "consolidating into a single side of a page the candidate information sheets submitted by those candidates". 

Of course, the requirements that the ballot itself only indicate the candidates in alphabetical order and that the ballot not indicate which candidate or candidates are incumbents on the board (as well as the prohibition of write-in candidates) is further evidence of the desire for a purely impartial election process free from interference or influence by the association.

Now, what happens if, in the midst of this process, the association decides to sponsor or schedule a "meet the candidates" event–and one or more of the candidates is unable to attend?  Or one candidate is not allowed to speak as long as the other candidates?  Or perhaps the sound system goes out after the first two candidates speak and the other candidates are not able to be heard by all of the members in attendance? 

How about a candidate (or one or more of his followers) that wants to pass out (or does in fact circulate) additional campaign materials at this event?  Can the association allow this at an association sponsored event?  If so, are these materials now part of the "official records" of the association?

Finally, what happens when one of the candidates who is not elected to the board of directors complains that he lost the election because:

  • he was unable to attend the "meet the candidates" event and notified the association but the association refused to reschedule,
  • he wasn’t allowed to speak for as long as the other candidates,
  • other candidates were distributing additional campaign materials at the event and he was not told this would be allowed,
  • the sound system went out while he was speaking, or
  • he didn’t feel he needed to attend the event since he had already provided the association with his information sheet

I’m not sure any condominium or cooperative association wants to find out whether an arbitrator with the Department of Business and Professional Regulation or a judge in one of our county or circuit (or appellate) courts will agree with that candidate when he argues that the association, by sponsoring that "meet the candidates" event, violated the provisions of the Florida Statutes and the Florida Administrative Code that seek to protect and preserve the impartiality of the election process.

Hopefully, ROC boards will consider these concerns when deciding whether to sponsor or schedule "meet the candidates" events in the future.

I didn’t want January to end without welcoming a new resident-owned community into the fold.

Just before 2010 came to a close, Tropicana Mobile Manor in Fort Myers was bought by an association of homeowners formed to purchase the park and convert it to a resident-owned cooperative, Tropicana Co-op, Inc.

Tropicana has 470 total spaces and the purchase price was $33,810,000.  More than 160 residents bought membership shares in the cooperative to help finance the purchase and Bank of America provided the blanket loan.

The closing occurred on December 17 and the residents were guided through the process by Marty Pozgay and his Florida Community Services Group.

Congratulations to the residents of Tropicana.  Welcome to the ROC family and we’ll look forward to seeing your board members at future seminars and meetings of the Southwest Florida Resident Owned Communities.

As many of you know, between our seminars at Spring Creek Village in Bonita Springs, Venice Isle Estates in Venice, Skyway Village in Palmetto, my recent presentation for the Mid-Florida ROC meeting at Hawthorne in Leesburg, and attending several annual meetings, January has been incredibly busy and I have been asked many very interesting questions by attendees at these events.  I promise to discuss several of those questions on this blog during the next few weeks.

In the meantime, I want to thank all of the communities that hosted our presentations and also want to thank Skyway Village for inviting me to their open house for their beautifully renovated clubhouse and Windward Isles in Sarasota for allowing me to share in the celebration of their 25th anniversary of becoming a resident-owned community.

2011 is shaping up as a banner year for ROCs in Florida and we’re glad that Tropicana has joined us!

I’m surely not alone in trying to understand the tragedy that occurred just over a week ago in Tucson.   Regardless of one’s political views, it’s certainly worth considering the clear lack of civility and common courtesy that seems to be the rule rather than the exception throughout our country today.

Several days after the shootings in Arizona, I attended a meeting at one of the communities we represent in Southwest Florida and was saddened to observe a level of disrespect and rage that simply has no place in ROCs.   After the meeting, several residents mentioned to me that had I not attended, the meeting would have been disrupted by a number of unit owners.   Several other members approached me after the meeting and stated that I had been "duped" and hadn’t heard the "other side" of the story.

As an attorney that represents many community associations, I’ve often had to explain to unit owners that we don’t have "a dog in the fight".  In other words, my role is not to take sides on any particular issue being considered by a community–I may point out factors to an association’s board of directors and membership that should be considered but assuming that the actions being discussed by the association do not violate any state, federal, or local laws, my job is to help ensure that the process that leads to the result is proper and legal.

Board members are volunteers and it’s very troubling to attend unit owner meetings where residents fail to treat a director with even a minimal amount of courtesy and respect.    When a board member is shouted down or where his or her name is met with hisses or jeering, I find myself wondering what causes unit owners to demonize one of their neighbors and refuse to listen to any opinion other than their own?

How can a resident owned community survive if members no longer treat other members with simple courtesy and respect?   Does any resident want to live in a community where issues are allowed to fester and be fed by rumor mongering and unfounded criticism of the motives of board members until those issues explode?   Wouldn’t that resident much rather live in a community where issues are resolved by civil discussion and debate?

Every member of a resident owned community has the right to attend almost every association meeting and can inspect numerous records of the association.  For example, Florida Statutes Sections 719.106 and 719.104 call for open cooperative association board meetings and access to a cooperative association’s official records.

At the same time, every association member has an obligation to be fully informed about issues that come before the board, and to treat all board members–and all unit owners–with courtesy and respect.

In a month where we cope with the carnage in Tucson and commemorate the life and death of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., I truly hope that we all rediscover the art of listening and treat each other with the civility that every one of us deserves.

 

 

What better way to start 2011 than with an "op-ed" piece in the January 3 issue of The New York Times that undermines the idea that pets are beneficial to our health and happiness? 

"Fido’s No Doctor. Neither is Whiskers." was written by Hal Herzog, a professor of psychology at Western Carolina University,  and I have a feeling that this article will generate some interesting discussions in communities throughout the country.  I’ll probably be answering a few questions about Professor Herzog’s arguments at our upcoming seminars.

And if you’re already tired of dealing with pets and other issues facing ROC board members and managers this early in the new year, keep reminding yourselves that things could always be worse--as you’ll see in this report and video from a television station in Houston, Texas.   Thanks to my colleague Janet Romano at Florida Shores Bank for forwarding this story about an embattled community and its apparently out of control HOA board.

Let’s hope that all of our ROCs have a very peaceful, civil, and prosperous 2011.  We’ll look forward to seeing you at one of our upcoming seminars!

 

I was contacted by a board member of a resident owned cooperative earlier this month with a rather interesting situation.  One of the unit owners was videotaping the board meetings and now wanted to broadcast those videotapes on the "in house" channel that served the community.   Was the association’s board required to allow the unit owner to broadcast these videotapes?

The statutes governing condominium, cooperative, and mandatory homeowners associations provide that a member is entitled to videotape board meetings.  For example, Florida Statute Section 719.106(1)(c) provides in part that "any unit owner may tape record or videotape meetings of the board of administration."

However, the right to record or videotape does not create a right to broadcast that tape recording or videotape and there is clearly nothing in any of the applicable statutes or Florida Administrative Code sections that requires the association to allow an association member to broadcast the videotape or recording on the association’s "in house" channel.  

Here are a few reasons why I suggest that a resident owned community not broadcast board meetings (either live or by video or audio replay) on the community’s "in house" channel:

  • Many board members and unit owners may feel inhibited by the knowledge that their every word and action at the meeting will be broadcast throughout the community.  Some people simply don’t feel comfortable speaking or otherwise participating when they are being videotaped.
  • There’s a real danger that board meetings–where the business of the association is supposed to be conducted–will become "media events" or "performances".  While CSPAN certainly has helped open the doors to the workings of our Federal government and the meetings of many governmental boards and agencies are televised, community associations are a different animal--ROC board members are volunteers and Florida’s ‘government in the sunshine" law doesn’t apply.  I’d suggest that many unit owners in a resident owned community would be less willing to serve on the ROC board knowing that the board meetings would be broadcast on the "in house" channel.
  • Unless there is very controversial item on the agenda, many, if not most, unit owners simply don’t attend board meetings.  Unit owner participation is both encouraged by Florida’s statutes and important to the overall health of resident owned communities and my suspicion is that even fewer unit owners will attend board meetings in person if these meetings are broadcast.

I’m also concerned that the taping won’t accurately reflect the meeting–perhaps the video or audio quality won’t be sufficient, or perhaps the person taping the meeting will alter the tape for innocent (or not so innocent) reasons. 

And if the association decides to supervise the taping and broadcasting of the meetings, wouldn’t that tape now become an "official record" of the association?  Does the association really want to be responsible for safeguarding these tapes as "official records" and producing them in response to a unit owner’s record inspection request?

Obviously, if a unit owner wants to make a video or audio tape of a board meeting available to the other members of a ROC he or she can certainly do so–but I’d suggest that an association and its board is better served by not allowing those tapes to be part of the programming on the association’s "in house" channel.