CAI representatives and Florida Sen. Jason Pizzo (D-Miami-Dade County) met with White House officials on Sept. 20 to discuss condominium safety initiatives to garner support for two pieces of legislation; H.R. 8304 and H.R. 7532.
CAI representatives at the meeting were Ron Perl, Esq. fellow in CAI’s College of Community Association Lawyers (CCAL) and chair of CAI’s Federal Legislative Action Committee; Mitch Frumkin, RS, P.E. Kipcon in New Jersey, Don Plank from National Cooperative Bank in Washington, D.C.; Scott Canady, CAI’s federal advocate, Phoebe Neseth, Esq., and myself.
White House staff members were extremely engaged in the conversation. They shared that the White House staff discussed these issues with the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. CAI is encouraged that condominium safety is a topic of conversation between the White House and federal agencies.
During the presentation, we shared the scope of condominium housing units in the U.S., the age of housing units, their geographic locations, and barriers to financing critical condominium repairs. Click here for a link to the slide deck that we used to tell our story.
The two bills we ask direct support for include:
- H.R. 8304, the Rapid Financing for Critical Condo Repairs Act, allows the Federal Housing Administration to insure condominium association building rehabilitation loans made by private lenders. FHA-insured loans will allow associations to finance building repairs over 30-years, reducing the need for large special assessments on homeowners.
- H.R. 7532, the Securing Access to Finance Exterior Repairs (SAFER) in Condos Act, allows condominium homeowners to finance a building repair special assessment over 20 to 30-years. Condominium homeowners may combine a building repair special assessment with existing mortgage debt in a new FHA-insured 30-year mortgage. Homeowners also have the option of financing only the building repair special assessment through a 20-year FHA-insured second mortgage.
The conversation with White House staff is one of many efforts by the CAI advocacy team to move sensible public policy forward for community association while ensuring greater condominium safety.
