Most board of directors govern fairly, responsibly and successfully. It’s true. In a recent homeowner satisfaction survey conducted by Zogby Analytics for the Foundation for Community Association Research, 84% of homeowners said their elected governing board is “absolutely “ or “for the most part” serving the best interest of their community.
Florida legislators passed a bill this year, HB 1237 – an overcriminalization law applying to condominium board members.
The CAI Florida Legislative Alliance successfully secured amendments to the bill so there was simply a cross reference of criminal activity. The CAI efforts were critical in making this new law much better. However, the bill is still terrible for public perception of community association board members. As I watched the work of the CAI Florida Legislative Alliance during the session, I started researching overcriminalization laws. Apparently, legislators love to create criminalization laws. After you finish reading this article, I suggest you go to twitter and immediately start following @ACrimeADay This Twitter feed documents some of the ridiculous laws and regulations in U.S. Code and the Federal Register. They’ve been posting since 2014 and I don’t believe they’ve repeated any laws. At the end of this article are a few of the ridiculous crimes tweeted from @ACrimeADay.
Before you have fun with Twitter, please read about this overcriminalization law in Florida. HB 1237 is a bill amending the condominium act that spells out specific criminal acts of boards of directors and associated penalties. While the bill does not generally create new areas of law specifically related to criminal activity of a condominium board member, the bill recognizes other areas of the Florida law related to criminal activity; including embezzlement of funds, forgery, tampering with physical evidence and obstruction of justice. Embezzlement of funds is clear and I see no problem with it being spelled out in a condominium law. Stealing money is a crime and anyone found guilty of stealing money; including board members in a community association, should be punished accordingly. However, there are two criminal acts – by their name – create alarm; including “tampering with physical evidence and obstruction of justice”. The examples used in the narrative of the bill include the following: if a board member destroys or refuses to allow inspection or copying of an official record of a condominium association within the time period required by law, the crime is punishable as tampering with physical evidence or obstruction of justice.
Existing law in Florida requires condominium board member to provide access to and inspection of specific books and records. That is a good governance principle that creates transparency and builds community. That law already exists and if an association doesn’t comply, there are avenues a unit owner may take to force compliance.
There are nearly 2.5 million VOLUNTEER community association board and committee members performing more than 80 million hours of work annually. These volunteer board members do not get paid for their work. There is a legal framework that clearly and specifically provides for their authority and their responsibility. It is clearly stated in Florida Statute that condo board members have a duty of a care and a fiduciary duty to the association. In fact, Florida has the most complicated and detailed of laws related to board authority in condominiums. With HB 1237 creating this alarming criminalization perception of board members is unfortunate. It creates an unnecessary perception that condo board members are criminals.
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Unfortunately, this appears to be typical with lawmakers. They must feel they aren’t doing their job if they aren’t making more laws, which only creates more criminals. It’s already a crime to steal, obstruct justice and tampering with evidence.
The saddest part is the hypocrisy that lawmakers created HOAs to do their work for them – maintain roads, parks, playgrounds, etc. – but don’t give the boards the tools to maintain them. Instead they want to strip away their powers and make them a pliant division or department of the government responsible for maintaining private property.
HOAs save taxpayers billions in taxes and often do a better job maintaining the community than the government does of maintaining public areas.
This bill does nothing to make homeowners safer from actual criminals. It should be considered a ridiculous waste like the other CrimeADay tweets.
Jeff, Thank you for your comments. I agree with your last statement!
Thank you, Dawn. This is a disturbing trend and needs to be exposed as overreaching. I wonder if it is a crime for an owner to agree to pay for association services but then attempt to steal those services by not paying for them.
Criminalizing board and CAM actions comes as a blessing for associations caught with cheaters and bullies. We have made complaints to the condo state organisation, but they are of no help at all. Even if the abusive situations are in a minority of the condo associations they are a serious problem for the home owners who are often too old or too absent or fearful of retaliation to deal with the abusive situation.
Rick Scott still has not signed HB1237 into law. Several lobbyist are encouraging him to not sign it and HB6027.
I disagree. I am in the middle of a situation where a board president took ALL of the association records and shredded them. $450.00 worth of shredding. Nothing is left. All of the documents that are considered “permanent” records of the association–gone. All ballots and voting records–gone. All unit owner files, contracts, bids, unit owner and rental approvals, background checks, prescriptions from unit owner/rental MD’s for working animals and support animals–everything gone. Warranties for the buildings, insurance policies, accounting records and tax returns– all gone. Then this president sold his unit and left. There was not 1 piece of paper left in the association office. He then taunted unit owners at the local grocery store when he saw them by telling them how he F’ed up their association. Yes, he should be charged criminally.
Then the new president took over. Their “55 & older” status lapsed for about 5 years. Without a board meeting, (posting of an agenda item), she “surveyed” unit owners by a “show of hands” who wanted to go back to the 55 & older status. She nor the management company that they hired put together a proper ballot so owners could vote properly. She did not survey the “occupants in the units” to determine the 80/20 rule. They used “voting records” to determine unit owners ages. Half of the association are part-time residents; we have very few criminals who have lost their “voting rights”, renters and owners from other countries. She then attested on the official paperwork submitted to the state that we were in compliance with the “55 & older” status. As per our local HUD office, that is NOT the procedure to regain compliance.
So, Are we or are we not a “55 & older” community?? I say not and again, she needs to have charges brought against her. Like every community, we have people who are trying to sell their units. What do they tell a potential buyer??
Unfortunately, board members are not complying with certification, they are just reading their documents–if at all and signing the paperwork stating that they complied with state regulations–again lying. Sorry, but I am all for criminal charges.