131 | Florida Reserve Funding Legislation & HOA Law - HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Marnie Dale Ragan (00:00):
There's a lot of investors in Florida, and

(00:01):
whether they be out of state orout of country, they're also not
keen to see assessments go upfor things that they don't
necessarily use, because ifthey're renting the property and
they're not getting complaintsfrom their tenants, they don't
want to pay more. So there is abattle you will see between
resident owners versus investorowners.

Announcer (00:19):
HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies

that c (00:22):
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Reserves, Community Financials,Kevin Davis Insurance Services,
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You'll find links to theirwebsite and social media in the
show notes.

Robert Nordlund (00:36):
Welcome back to HOA Insights
Common Areas. I'm RobertNordlund, and I'm here today for
episode 131 with an attorneyfrom Florida up to her eyeballs
in condom condominium issues.
Ms, Marnie Dale Reagan. Now,Marnie is a partner with the
renowned haber law firm and theco chair of their condominium
and HOA practice group. Now Isay it that way because in

(00:58):
Florida there are differentbodies of law for condominiums
and HOA and looking into herbackground to find out a little
what makes her who she is. Backin college at George Washington
University in Washington, DC,she wrote on their crew team,
and that's near and dear to myheart. It captured my attention
because I was a coxswain for theUniversity of Washington, and

(01:21):
that's on the other side of thecountry back when I was in
college, but we havecondominiums to talk about. So
there's always been plenty goingon in Florida with respect to
condominiums and Hoa, since it'spretty much neck and neck with
California for total number ofassociations in the state, but
the activity in Floridaincreased significantly, as you

(01:42):
can expect with a tragiccollapse of Champlain tower
south in 2021 so we're glad tohave Marty with us today on the
program, so you can hear fromher what she's been observing
and dealing with the last fewyears. Well, last week's
episode, 130 was another one ofour great board hero episodes,

(02:02):
this one featuring a boardmember from an 18 unit
association in the PacificNorthwest, and she told the
story of passing $100,000 perunit special assessment for
essential building repairs. Andkeynote here it's on units where
the property values are about300,000 so that's clearly Heck
of a challenge and a heck of astory. So if you missed that

(02:26):
episode or any other priorepisode, take a moment after
today's program to listen fromour podcast website, Hoa
insights.org, or watch on ourYouTube channel. But better yet,
subscribe from any of the majorpodcast platforms, so you don't
miss any future episodes. Well,those of you watching on YouTube
can see the HOA insights mug Ihear, but mug I have here, of

(02:48):
course, it's one about budgetingthat you can browse through from
our Hoa insights.org website orthe link in our show notes, and
you'll find we have some greatfree stuff there, like board
member zoom backgrounds and somespecialty items for sale, like
the mug. So go to the merchstore, download a free zoom
background, take a moment, lookaround, find the mug you'd like,

(03:10):
and email me atpodcast@reservesday.com with
your name, shipping address. Mugchoice, mentioning episode 131
mug giveaway, and if you're the10th person to email me, I'll
ship that mug to you free ofcharge. Well, we enjoy hearing
from you responding to theissues you're facing at your

(03:30):
association. So if you have ahot topic, a crazy story, or a
question you'd like us toaddress, you can contact us at
805-203-3130, or email us atpodcast at reserve study.com and
this episode was prompted byElizabeth from all the way out
in Honolulu, who asked, do weneed to know about Florida

(03:52):
legislation reacting to theChamplain tower South collapse?
There? Is that a Florida issue?
Or will it affect ourlegislation here? And that's a
great question from a Hawaiilistener. So Marnie, welcome to
the program, and how will yourespond to Elizabeth?

Well, thank you first for having me. I
really appreciate it. Iappreciate the opportunity to
speak with you, as well as yourviewership. The answer is yes,
if Florida law does matter,there's been a long standing
joke that that we kind of heldourselves to the standard of the
rules are different here, andthey really are because, you
know, similar to California,Florida is full of all type of
communal housing, whether it becondominiums or homeowners

(04:32):
associations. And what we'reseeing now is their aging, and
that's exactly what whathappened there. You have a
dichotomy of amazing luxuryproperties selling for the 10s
of millions of dollars per unit,and you have a lot of retirees
that have come from theNortheast or all over the rest
of the country living closer toa fixed income. And so it's

(04:53):
really creating a lot offinancial issues and struggles
for condominiums in Floridahomeowners associations and.
Florida and the legislaturethat's really trying to bridge
the gap between the two. So it'sdifficult. Yeah,

I can imagine condominiums, a condominium, but
if you have a six unitbeachfront place that is luxury,
you know, grand, I don't know,3000 4000 square foot per unit,
wonderful places. And I'mimagining here, floor to ceiling
views, that kind of thing. Andthen a mile away you can have a

(05:27):
little 60 unit place that's 30years old, that was apartment
conversion, and you got to findrules work for both of

them absolutely. And then actually
you can double that 30 yearsbecause we have some communities
here in South Florida thatstarted out maybe as rental and
apartments, and they were builtin the 50s and 60s. So these
buildings are 6070, pushing 80years old. And certainly the
maintenance on those is

incredible, yeah. And every day all of them,
the new ones, the luxury ones,the older ones, the simpler
ones, they're all getting alittle bit older. And that's the
roofing, the HVAC systems, thehallways, the infrastructure,
the asphalt, everything a littlebit older. Every the plumbing,

(06:11):
the electrical, everything'sgetting a little bit older,

absolutely.
And so what we saw was, youknow, with Champlain towers,
we've seen a flurry oflegislation over the last four
years, and each year, they tweakit, and they fine tuned it more
and more. And you know, bestintentions there are, there's
still ambiguity, there's stillsome errors, but what it's
really doing is it's it'sremoving the option for the
attitude of, I won't be herewhen the repairs are necessary,

(06:35):
so I'm not going to fund them.
And what that comes down to isreserves. Reserves are the
collection of monies, where Imake a very simple example, roof
is 10 years. It's $100,000 toreplace. Collect $10,000 a year,
and you have it for years. Andyears you had retirees who said,
I'm not going to be here. Let'swaive the funding of reserves.
And by statute, you could. Sowhat our legislature has done is

(06:58):
they've created two categoriesof reserves. Some of them are
called the structural integrityreserves, which is the roof, the
structure, the fireproofing,plumbing, electrical
waterproofing, and exteriorwindows and doors. And they've
said you can no longer waive thefunding. You absolutely have to
fund this.

Let me stop you there, because, from my point of
view, Florida is almost unique.
I think Ohio is the same in thatthe homeowners have a line item
veto over reserve funding.

Nope. Not here, okay, not here in Florida.

My impression was that homeowners have had, as
you say, avoid, a voice in this,and they can say, well, I don't
want to do that. I'd rather goto Disney World. I'd rather hold
on to the money myself. Andthat's a problem when you have
the board trying to provide forthe sustainability the
association, and you have thehomeowners saying, I'd rather

(07:54):
pay less,

correct, and everybody always wants to pay
less. And so up until four orfive years ago, the membership
could vote to waive, or theycould vote to partially fund
those reserves, and you couldlower the amount that they
contributed. What thelegislature has now said is
there are certain reserves thatare mandatory. You can't waive
them. You can't even take avote. It's not up to the
membership, and it's not up tothe board. There are some
reserves now that they still canwaive, but it takes a full

(08:17):
majority vote of the membership,

so they're making it harder for the
homeowners to say, No, I don'tcare,

absolutely and at the end of the day, it
all comes down to life safety.
And that's that's the impetusfor the for for the creation of
this legislation. It's a goodidea. And so what you find here
in Florida is you findcommunities that, if they've
been funding their reserves inthe past, it wasn't such a
devastating blow. It's thecommunities that had been waving
year after year. They'vefinancially really taken a hit

(08:45):
over the last year or two,

right? We've had a steady stream of clients,
community associations who wantto know what's our
responsibility, how much shouldwe be setting aside? And that
the volume of clients is muchsmaller than California. I'm
looking over for the YouTubepeople. I'm looking over at my
United States map on my wallhere. That's that volume of

(09:09):
business that we've had inFlorida is a lot smaller than in
California. Again, a similarlyCommunity Association size
state, because there's so manyboards historically that said
the homeowners are just going towaive it. So why do we care that
much? And so it's wonderful forthe legislation to be tightening
the standards and saying, Heyfolks, it is all about and in

(09:31):
our words, paying the ongoingcost of deterioration your fair
share for the 365 days you're init this year. Let's pay your
fair share of how it's getting alittle bit older every day,

absolutely, and it's and it's the it's a
very financially sound decisionto make. And there are some
communities that have beenundertaking reserve studies over
time because they wanted to alsodo a bit of a check on the
property. How are we doingtoday? How's our snapshot? And
then you could forecast fromthere, and you would see that
sometimes maybe the. Useful lifewould be extended farther out,
and that item could come down alittle bit. And then in other

(10:04):
cases, you saw something thatmay have been degrading more
quickly than anticipated, right?
So there has always been somesome reserve studies undertaken
in Florida, but now it'smandatory.

From your point of view. As an attorney, you see
board members who have. Theycome from many different
backgrounds. They may be titansof industry. They may be
professionals like yourself, adoctor, a lawyer, they may be
someone who had less of asignificant professional
background, and they're all theboard members. They're the

(10:33):
decision makers, and what dothey know about a roof? What do
they know about delinquentassessments? And so much about
being a board member is probablyknowing when to ask for help. Do
you see it that way?

Absolutely and you know, and again, I can
talk about Florida, because thisis my home. You know, what you
see is you see volunteer boardmembers, and 99% of them, I
truly believe, are doing theabsolute best they can. Everyone
has a pet project, and Iappreciate that. But to that end
there, they still know that thisis an asset. This is a not for
profit corporation. They're anelected board of directors to
govern this corporation and toprotect this asset, which for

(11:08):
some people may be the mostsignificant asset, as well as
liability that they own. And sothere is a real pride of
ownership to that, and they'retaking it very seriously. We
have heightened educationrequirements here in Florida for
board members, they have to takeeducation within 90 days of
being elected. You know, myfirst piece and my continued
piece of advice to them alwaysis trust your professionals.

(11:31):
Surround yourself withprofessionals that you that you
trust, that you believe in,whether that be attorneys,
management companies, engineers,accountants, and let them do the
heavy lifting, and then you havethe ability to rely upon their
guidance to move forwardcomfortably.

Yeah, I like the way you characterize that,
because I've heard so manypeople talk about board member
job being being a decisionmaker, not a researcher. But
when you have the decisionmakers, the people doing the
heavy lifting, the specialiststeeing it up for you, they will
say we could do A or B, A, one,make a simple illustration. We

(12:08):
could fix the roof for 100 grandand it'll last 10 years. Or we
could fix the roof for 150grand, 50% more, but it'll last
20 years. Either way, you get afixed roof, and the professional
has laid it out for you, andthen it's just up to the board
to decide how cost effective dothey want to be, how much do
they want to spend? And in somany situations, if you have a

(12:30):
good team like that teeing it upfor you, then you get to be, I
want to say, just the decisionmaker, and almost like, can I
say, like a jury, where a jury,a group of people, your peers,
which are the board members,representatives of the members,
saying, Yeah, we prefer to do itthis way, and not doing the

(12:54):
research, but just making thedecision Absolutely.

And that's that's the way you've got to do
it, is you get as muchinformation as you can provide
it to you by the people thathave the ability to to ask the
right questions, get the rightget the right details, and then
you can make that informeddecision. But what I will say
is, you know, board members areelected, and ultimately it is
their decision, and it's notalways the best decision to say,
you know, hey, let's make this avote of the members, because

(13:18):
it's not really appropriate. AndI'm all for transparency. I'm a
huge proponent of filling youryour meetings full of so much
information that there's nothingleft for an owner to ask and in
that can start out with having alot of really long board
meetings, but as your membershipbegins to trust the process,
they'll rely upon that more. Butultimately, these are decisions

(13:38):
of the board so that they, youknow, share the information, go
forward, but then make thedecision, and have the
professionals around you thatcan back it up for you as to how
that decision was made. You

talked about something there trust, and when
the board is transparent, whenthey're saying this is the way
it is, these are the facts, thenthe homeowners get comfortable
that they're in good hands withthat board as leaders, and does
that minimize the differencesand the political tension at an
association when you've got thatgoing on,

sometimes, I'll give you a lawyer's answer.
It depends, you know, becauseFlorida, listen, Florida is
Florida, and every state hasthese issues, but we had, you
know, kind of dueling orcompeting interests in the
legislature for the last fewyears. One absolutely life
safety, the structural integrityreserves, the movement on that.
We've also had a lot oftransparency pieces of our
legislation, and itunfortunately resulted from bad

(14:35):
actors management and some boardmembers that hadn't had stolen
some money. So there's a lot ofdistrust in Florida right now
towards board members and somemanagement and some attorneys,
frankly, and it's a matter oftrying to overcome all of that.
So it's it's having this boardsitting at the front of a room,
having their professionalsaround them, showing why we're
having these increases inbudgets based upon state

(14:56):
mandated, state mandatedreserves. You know, let's throw
in. Our insurance for goodmeasure, because that's a
response. It's been a verydifficult road for board members
to do it. And what I'm seeing isthat you have, you know, I
tease. I've been doing this forclose to 25 years. I used to
joke and say, you know, it takesone and there's at least one for
every building, so you have tobe somewhat conservative. Well,

(15:17):
now there's at least five inevery building. So you've got to
be able to withstand thosequestions and that pushback from
these owners as to why you'redoing things, why money is being
spent, why things are costingmore. And as you lay out
insurance and reserves and youyou sell to your membership
guys, we need to budget more forlegal we need to budget more for
our accountants and management,because we want to have talented

(15:38):
professionals with us, and someof the owners start to push back
on that. Then, you know, tothrow in another caveat you
have, you have some, for lack ofa better term pundit saying, we
need to have professional boardmembers. We need to be paying
them. Well, guess what? Thatcosts money. None of this is
going to be free. And sothere's, you know, there's
communities where the units arebeautiful and luxurious, and

(16:00):
there's over 55 retiredcommunities where they're
they're doing all they can tostay afloat. So I don't know if
it creates a crisis. I don'tknow if it's going to create
redevelopment and terminations,but it's certainly a very
interesting, dynamic time to bein this industry in Florida, as
well as other states. I pick onFlorida because we've got a lot
of coastline and a lot of peoplewant to come here. Politics

(16:20):
outstanding, right?

There's a lot of good reasons to come to
Florida. And it's been astereotype that when you retire,
you can go to Florida, and it'sjust it's beautiful. And we had
a board hero just a couplemonths ago who was talking about
how she moved from Michigan, andshe's now in the Florida Keys.
She is the happiest girl in thecountry. And next time I go to

(16:45):
Miami, I'm going to see if I canschedule some time and drive
south to visit her, because shewas talking about the idyllic
world that she's created down onthe keys. So yeah, there's a lot
of attraction, but you talkedabout a whole bunch of things in
that. That last statement you'retalking about, where do we go
from here? Being a board memberis challenging, and that's why
we started this podcast. We wantto encourage board members. It

(17:07):
is hard work, and one of the keysteps to making it easier is
having the right informationkeyed up or teed up so you have
just decision points. You're notdoing your research, you're not
wondering. And I think of issueslike, you're not managing the
$500,000 roof project. You havea construction consultant that's

(17:28):
doing that kind of project. Lotof challenges right now.
Inflation makes things moreexpensive. We learned about
supply chain a few years ago,making things more expensive
insurance, with all the weatherevents and expensive damage that
we have from hurricanes, hailstorms and other areas of the
country, wildfires in Californiahere, it's expensive, but I

(17:52):
think we have to get somehow,and it maybe comes back to
communication and transparency.
Owning real estate is expensive.
Can we get around that?

Absolutely. I mean, it used to be a pretty
well settled notion that youcould work and you could retire
to Florida by condominium andlive on a fixed income. And I
don't want, I'm not going to saycheaply, but you could do that.
That is no longer the case. Andanyone that thinks that living
in the condominium is going tobe cheaper is sadly mistaken.
It's just not the case there.
You know. It has to be treatedjust like a home. There's going

(18:24):
to be maintenance costs andcarrying costs, and there's no
way to avoid them. An

inflationary economic environment. It's going
to get more expensive if youbought into the association 10
years ago, when the monthlyassessments were 350, or are
they now 550, 600 and they'regoing to go higher and higher
and higher.

And, you know, thankfully, knock on wood,
cross fingers, insurance hasgotten a little better for us.
This year we've seen somereductions, and in a lot of the
there's a bit of a leveling outwith respect to some of the the
SIRs requirement funding,because the first, the first
bite at the apple, happened lastyear. And so I think the shock
value is gone. So it's, it'ssettling down a touch, but it

(19:04):
has not completely resolveditself. There's still going to
be, I think, an increase incollections. We're going to see
some more foreclosures. And it'sunfortunate, but it, but it is
necessary, because at the end ofthe day, this, these reserves,
their life safety. It's notoptional. It's, it's not, you
know, for fun and giggles. Thisis about maintaining the
protection of the building andits residents and its property.

(19:27):
So they're definitely necessary.

Yeah, Champlain towers South taught us that so
abruptly overnight back in 2021well, Marnie, we need to change
which I feel like we're startingto go down some depressing type
things here. So let's take aquick break to hear from one of
our generous sponsors, afterwhich we'll be back with more
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And we're back.
Well, we were talking about someof the higher costs, some of the
challenges, but I want to spenda little more time here on the
podcast talking about, what canboards do. So Marnie, what
advice do you have for boards?
How can they what best practicescan you suggest for them to
safely and successfully beguiding their association

(20:40):
forward?

Sure, and I don't want to be Debbie donner,
Florida is fantastic. Livinghere in South Florida is
wonderful. I was in the Keyslast weekend. Wouldn't trade it
for the world. There's nowhereelse I'd rather live. But to
that end, I mean communal livingis where we're at, and we've
separated condominiums andhomeowners associations. And
homeowners associations used tobe a little bit more wild west,
you know, a little bit lessregulated. They're looking more

(21:01):
and more like condominiums herein Florida, and there are
regulations. You have a roadmap. We have an entire division
up in Tallahassee that helpshomeowners as well as board
members with the governance ofthese community associations.

Because we're talking about for Hoa, we're
talking about single familyhomes united by a road, a gate,
a clubhouse, maybe a golfcourse, tennis, pickleball
courts. So there's a lot ofstuff. And so when you look at
it, you have your privateproperty or your private space,
and then shared space. And sothat makes it similar to

(21:36):
condominiums, private space andshared space. And so there is
some

it does in a condominium, you own your unit,
and you own a percentage shareof the balance of the building.
In an HOA, you own your home,and you own and then you pay and
you contribute towards all ofthe amenities, which is just
what you spend, you know,clubhouse amenities, pools,
gyms, spas, and what we see inFlorida is there's a lot of
branded residential developmenthappening. And so these

(22:02):
amenities are incredible. Theycould be multiple golf courses,
but all of that, there'scarrying costs to it, and it
attracts buyers and makes forFantastic communities. But it
certainly, you know, it doesneed that governance. It's not
just 15 homes sitting on a culde sac anymore,

flipping a coin and saying, Hey, Joe, what do
you think the budget to be nextyear. And who cares? Yeah, yeah,
it's a big deal, and it's legalconsequences,

of course.
And again, and when you'retalking about these are, these
are assets. These areindividual, you know, their
their home, their their asset,their liability, and they want
to see it well governed. So youknow what I want for boards, and
I'm always thankful for my boardmembers, because they they want
to get in there, they want totake care of things, and they
want to do the best they can.
The best thing they can do is,you know, have a good board.

(22:50):
Always respect each other. Youwould think it goes without
saying, but I always say it, youknow, have a good board. Work
together. Use yourprofessionals. Listen to your
membership. I'm

going to slow you down, respect each other.
Listen, you've done this. Thisis what you do all the time,
every day. Respect each other.
Listen to your professionals.

Unknown (23:10):
And there was homeowners. Listen to your
listen to

your kids, right? Because a board that's
pushing, you know, one item, ifit's not what their members
want, what was the point of it,but also the downside of that
is, if there's hard decisions tomake, you've got to be able to
withstand to know that you aredoing what's best for the
community, and it's not alwaysgoing to be the most popular
choice initially, at least

well, as you suggested earlier, there's going
to be some people that boughtthere and they're on fixed
incomes and they no longer canafford it, and maybe it's time
for them to realize they need togo live with their I'm going to
stereotype here, live with theirgrandkids in Cincinnati, because
you can't drag down the entireassociation for Mrs. Johnson,

(23:54):
nice Mrs. Johnson in unit 13,you just can't do that. It's a
corporation, and the board hasthe commission, because they're
they got the governingdocuments. They got state law,
what business judgment, rule,fiduciary principles. So many
reasons to focus on theassociation, not Mrs.

Johnson, correct, and they and when you
say fiduciary duty, fiduciaryduty, it's not optional, and
it's not just an elderlyindividual or fixed income.
There's a lot of investors inFlorida, and whether they be out
of state or out of country,they're also not keen to see
assessments go up for thingsthat they don't necessarily use,
because if they're renting theproperty and they're not getting

(24:33):
complaints from their tenants,they don't want to pay more. So
there, there is a battle, youknow, you will see between, you
know, resident owners versusinvestor

honors. Okay, so how does a board running the
association charter with theresponsibility to run this
entity? And they're volunteers,they've gone through a class,
you said, within 90 days ofbecoming a board member? Yes,
and in Florida, I recall, theyhave licensed managers, so the
managers have some

training the.
Managers have extensivetraining. And an interesting
caveat to our law now is thatwe've always hear, hear stories
about a board member who, youknow, never has to run through
an election because he kind of,you know, bulldozes or bullies
people. There's language now formanagers that if they see things
going on during the electionprocess that aren't upheld by
law, they have a duty to reportit. So it's it's really put on a

(25:21):
lot of pressure on not justboard members, but managers and
management companies to do theright thing, to make sure that
things are proceeding as theyshould. So you don't have maybe
a 20 year board president who'salways controlled things with an
iron fist and behind behindclosed door that's over in

Florida.
Fantastic. Okay, so let's go tothat point number three,
listening to your homeowners,communicating effectively to
your homeowners, having thattransparency. So it's a we, not
us and them. How do you breakthat us versus them down? Where
you have the board saying theassessments need to go up from
450 to 500 and the homeownersaying, We don't want it, you

(26:01):
know, you're bad. We're going torecall you guys, you're crazy,
you know, that kind of stuff.
How do you break down the usversus them and make it more of
a we

it's time and communication, and it's really
it's holding budget meetings,budget workshops, having a lot
of explanation. We also havetools now that are required in
Florida websites where a lot ofinformation has to be made
available to the members througha password protected login
portal. And so to that end, allof that information, all that

(26:31):
backup for this decision making,is available to the members.
They can see it. And so it'sjust a matter of going through
that process, having thoseconversations, sometimes
repeatedly, and reallyexplaining to the membership why
these decisions are being made,that they are legally required.
This is not just a discretionarydecision for the board. These
are things that have to occur,and that really does help. And

(26:52):
again, that communication overtime. Again, it takes a while,
but it will get those membersthere. And you do, you start to
see a decrease in attendance,because there does become that
trust, because they understandit, and it's really because you
filled them with so muchknowledge that they get it,

yeah, well, you just got me thinking, there's
probably a healthy fraction ofpeople who come to board
meetings when there's a lot ofdissension. You may have a lot
of people at home owners atboard meeting because they're
they're there with questions.
They're there with anger. Youdon't want apathy where no one
is there and no one cares. Noone wants to work on a

(27:31):
committee, be involved on thenext board, but you do want it
low enough to represent thatpeople are content. Their homes
are in good hands with theboard. They're doing a good job.
As Americans, our home isgenerally our number one
investment. You want thesituation where you're trusting

(27:51):
the board, and I hope thatthat's what we're doing for our
audience here, inspiring them tobe the trustworthy board. And I
like your ideas about time,communication, build trust. And
I think of the phrase politicalcapital, where you've done it
long enough consistently enoughthat they trust you absolutely.

You know you joke around in this practice
area. The here you have fourproblems, pets, parking, tenants
and money, period, most issuesand an association is
attributable to one of those. Sowhen you have these meetings and
you're talking about assessmentsthat may be going up, you are
going to have a vocal minority,absolutely. And the concern is
warranted. I get it, but whatyou want to do is you want to

(28:35):
try and go ahead and fill thataudience with people who already
understand it, already agree,get it and let them speak up to
that vocal minority is veryclearly shown to be the
minority, and you have the veryHey, for lack of a better term,
reasonable majorityunderstanding that these are,
these are things that just needto be done.

Well, there's two levels that that helps with,
because on one level, you havethe people that are believers in
the board, supporting the board.
They're vocal, and those arealso the people that are seeing
that the board is doing a prettydarn good job. And they're
honest, they're forthright,they're helping and those are
committee and board membercandidates for the future, and

(29:18):
it reminds me, we had a boardmember hero on the program not
too long ago, and he was talkingabout, he had a high rise condo
menu Association, and he hadfloor captains at every floor,
and they were responsible forthe emergency procedures. They
were responsible for answeringquestions. When people had
questions of what, what's theboard doing? Why are the

(29:39):
assessments going up, and theythey were building that into
just the way they run theirassociation. And I just sat
there listening, what afantastic thing you are. You're
building a communicationpipeline full of people. It's
not just the newsletter, it'snot just the website, it's not
an. Slipped under people'sdoors. You're talking about time

(30:01):
and communicating. So that'sdifferent ways, different times
throughout the month, I lovethat.

I do. You know what? I like the floor
captain, my only comment orconcern just because of things
that I see. You want to makesure that they're authorized,
that they have the rightinformation, because you don't
want to see misinformation getspread. Yes, but it can
absolutely be a wonderful tool.
Yeah,

those were his association. They were official
floor captains. They had a copyof the board meeting minutes,
and they had a copy of thebudget, and they were, they were
the pipeline of information fromthe board to the floor captains
to the homeowners. It was, itwas a great system. Yeah, you
know, you, you do this enough,and I do this enough that every
once in a while you, your heartis just warmed by the

(30:49):
associations that are doing itwell. And you think, I want to,
I want to see more of that goingon. And I hope we're giving some
good ideas here. Well, Marty,we're getting low on time here,
but I want to ask you, how didyou get into this crazy field of
community association law?

That's a good question. I'm a born and raised
Floridian, and I've always likedproperty and development, but I
didn't want to just dodevelopment. I'm not knocking it
by any stretch of theimagination, but it seems kind
of a little too form overfunction. For me, this is
interesting, because I really dosometimes I feel like I need a
psych degree, but I do feel likethis is the great way for me to

(31:27):
work with my clients. I reallydo feel like I'm helping them. I
have great relationships with myclients. This is their asset.
This is their home, and they andthey love it. And so I had the
opportunity to kind of get intoit a little bit by light, by
chance, but this that was backin 2001 and I've been doing this
ever since. And I really enjoyit, because it's not boring. I
get to do all aspects ofassociation, corporate law, so

(31:51):
whether it be draftingcontracts, you know, dispute
resolution, opinions, runningelections, I get to see my
boards. I get to see more boardmembers. And for me, it almost
becomes a bit of a challenge. Sothat when you have a board
that's elected, and the antiboard gets elected the next
year, and the anti board afterthat, to me, it's a testament
that I'm still counsel there. Itmeans that they've got enough
trust in me, whether they likedmy opinions, liked the board or

(32:14):
not, that they've maintained myrepresentation throughout. So
it's something that's reallyinteresting, and so I've gotten
to create great relationshipswith my clients over over the
years, and managers as well.
They're at one property, they goto another, they call me up and
say, hey, I want to work withyou again. And it's a very nice
compliment. It's very rewardingfor me, so I do enjoy it well.

Being the trusted advisor is a wonderful
thing, and I was just imaginingyou coming in and like an auto
mechanic, you're tuning thingsup. You're making things work,
you work. You hear that they'regoing through a rough patch with
a special assessment or ainterpretation of the governing
documents, or whatever it is onthe legal side of things or

(32:53):
collections. And you can come inand you can smooth it out and
get that engine running smoothagain, and get board members on
the same page. This is what yourgoverning documents say. This is
what the Florida law says. Andso this is the right way to do
it. And step one is A, B, C, D,E, F, G, and they're like, Okay,
now we know what to do, and theycan confidently move forward.

(33:14):
And you're fixing things,

yeah. And to that end, you know, board
members are volunteers, andthey're I always say they went
professional in something else.
When you have those, you know,hotter topics that are that are
more heavily debated orchallenged, let your
professionals, let your attorneycome in and be the bad guy,
because at the end of the day,I'm not going to see him in the
elevator. So if I need to saythe things that are necessary,
or explain things a little morefirmly or strongly, I'm happy to

(33:38):
do that, because at the end ofthe day, this is community
living. You know you want, youwant to not be uncomfortable in
your garage and you're in yourlobby by the pool and be able to
separate the two so that boardmembers can still be residents
enjoying this property. Andthat's I want that for them.

Yeah, and you don't want to be the board
thinking. I'd love to do it thisway, but it's only gonna get you
into deeper trouble. And you'rethere to say there's a right way
in the wrong way. The right waymay take a little more courage
at the front end, but it's goingto save you money and time and
trouble if we do it the rightway. So please do it the right
way. And I love having youthere, and for all the board

(34:16):
members out there listening, Ihope you have a Marnie on your
team that brings peace, thathelps give you that wise
counsel, and that helps you moveforward. So anyway, thank you,
Marnie. It's great talking withyou and having you on the
program. Any closing thoughts toadd at this time?

Um, I think I hit most of them. And again,
it's it's use professionals,rely upon professionals make
sure that you're doingeverything that you need to do
to protect yourself as a boardmember, as well as the property,
it is an asset, but it's reallyjust keeping your eyes open and
as well as your ears. That'sthat's the best advice I can
give to any board member.

Yeah, well, to all our board members out there,
thank you for serving. If you'dlike to get in touch with Marnie
or learn more about haber law,you can go to their website at
Haber. Dot law, l, a, W, so wehope you learned some HOA
insights from our discussiontoday that helps you bring
common sense to your commonareas. We look forward to having
you join us for another greatepisode next week.

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