I just finished watching the meeting before The Regulated Industries Committee in The Florida Senate. The topic, Florida condominiums and The DBPR.

I must say I found the meeting very interesting.

The testimony of the former Florida Condominium Ombudsman, Spencer Henning, was truly compelling. He spoke of how corrupt boards who want to remain in power literally never have to agree to turn over power, even if they lose an election and even if they are recalled. If you don’t like what they’re doing, you can sue them. That is if you have $200,000.00 of your own money you’re willing to spend on attorneys. He spoke of how, even if you sue them in court, they drag it out long enough so that the new election comes around, making your case moot and subject to dismissal.

Worst of all, he spoke of how powerless his position was. People heard the term Florida Condominium Ombudsman” and they assumed he had powers of the almighty to correct wrongs in their community; especially when clear cases of theft or other wrongdoing was going on. They were wrong.

After Spencer came a prosecutor with The Miami Dade State Attorney’s Office. He worked on The Hammocks case and told everyone how he had to fight long and hard for years to get access to records and that if he couldn’t get access to records, what chance does a regular unit owner have?

The topic of Arbitration came up. Of course they spoke about what we already knew. Arbitrators can enter orders that nobody has to listen to because their orders are appealable to the circuit court for a trial de novo.

Here’s the scary part………….we now have to budget for mandatory reserves and are passing special assessments in the tens of millions of dollars. The bad guys will soon have their hands on a lot of money.

So, The Florida Legislature now knows that these are the problems that are currently plaguing condominiums. You’re The Florida Legislature. What law would you create?