Representative Vicki Lopez, Senator Jennifer Bradley and Senator Jason Pizzo have filed companion bills HB1021 and SB1178. Leave no doubt, these bills take aim at community association managers and community association management companies.

I will tell you that in my 32 years of practice, too many times management companies have refused to provide or return copies of an association’s records after they have been terminated by the association. These new bills address that head on and provide:

468.4334 Professional practice standards; liability.—

(3) A community association manager or a community association management firm shall return all community association official records within its possession to the community association within 20 business days after termination of a contractual agreement to provide community association management services to the community association or receipt of a written request for return of the official records, whichever occurs first. Failure of a community association manager or a community association management firm to timely return all of the official records within its possession to the community association creates a rebuttable presumption that the association willfully failed to comply with this subsection. A community association manager or a community association management firm that fails to timely return community association records is subject to suspension of its license under s. 468.436, and a civil penalty of $1,000 per day for up to 10 days, assessed beginning on the 21st day after termination of a contractual agreement to provide community association management services to the community association or receipt of a written request from the association for return of the records, whichever occurs first.

I’ll say this…………it’s a law long overdue. Condominium associations simply cannot function without a return of their records and there is no reason for a management company not to immediately return the records when fired. Too many times I have seen the records kept by the management company simply because they were peeved that they were terminated.

This is going to be a very interesting legislative session coming up. Community association managers and management companies have long had their way in Tallahassee. It seems like there are a few new Sheriff’s in town that are about to change all that.

On the last episode of Condo Craze and HOAs:

Representative Vicki Lopez, Senator Jennifer Bradley and Senator Jason Pizzo have filed companion bills HB1021 and SB1178. Leave no doubt, these bills take aim at community association managers and community association management companies.

Link here: https://youtube.com/live/tnibF1SzFZ4