Alert on Pending Legislation
April 1, 2005

There are two bills, which have been filed in Tallahassee, that have the ability to detrimentally highly impact community associations throughout the State of Florida.

SB 2632 will prohibit a lien foreclosure or an action to recover a money judgment, brought about as a result of UNPAID ASSESSMENTS when the amount is less than $2500.
Associations will have to wait until a delinquent owner's account reaches $2500 before it can foreclose on a lien.
This will  protect deadbeats who do not pay their assessments, while punishing the overwhelming majority of owners who do pay their assessments.

HB 1229 is an attempt to resurrect last years bill, HB 1223, which was soundly defeated. The bill will attempt to:
 - require mandatory training for new Board mem bers
 - eliminate the ability of Associations to fully waive reserves.
 - require mandatory audits every two years.
This legislation was defeated last year and should be defeated again this year. It is hard enough to get people to serve on Boards now, making them submit to mandatory training will only make it harder. Furthermore, who will perform this training and with approximately 200,000 open Board slots each year, this training will be very costly.
In addition, Associations are over-regulated as it is and requiring audits and eliminating waiving reserves will only adversely affect quality of life and property values.

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