The
Bottom Line
Department
of Business and Professional Regulation
July
19, 2013
Dear Friends,
A bill approved by the Florida
Legislature and signed into law by Governor Rick Scott
requires new changes to the way a variety of Homeowner
Associations and its directors operate. The new law, effective
July 1, 2013, requires that HOAs, report new information to
the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR)
Division of Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes. We
intend to make this a very straightforward process by creating
a website by October 1, 2013, that will allow HOAs or their
community association manager to easily register their
information before the deadline of November 22, 2013.
The new law also requires all
Homeowner’s Associations to abide by the following:
-
Extending the records
retention period to 7 years;
-
Requiring records be kept
within 45 miles of the community or within the same
county;
-
Providing for the
electronic maintenance of records;
-
Prohibiting a fee for the
photographing of official records;
-
Limiting copying fees to 25
cents per page;
-
Prohibiting personnel costs
for document production for requests of less than 25 pages
or that take less than a half hour to fill; and
-
Limiting personnel costs
for document production to $20 per hour.
The law also requires the
following from association directors and officers:
-
Requiring newly elected
directors to certify that they have read and will uphold
the governing documents or that they have taken a DBPR-approved
education course;
-
Providing a process for
associations to follow when entering a contract with an
entity in which a director has a financial interest,
including the ability for members to cancel the contract;
-
Prohibiting, with
exceptions, officers, directors and managers from
soliciting or accepting anything of value from those
providing or offering to provide goods or services to the
association;
-
Providing that officers or
directors charged with felony theft or embezzlement of
association funds are automatically removed from office;
and
-
Requiring, unless waived
annually, that associations maintain fidelity bonding.
Stay tuned for more updates on
when the website goes live to be sure that all HOAs meet the
November deadline.
Sincerely,
Ken Lawson
Secretary
Department of
Business and
Professional Regulation
1940 North Monroe Street
Tallahassee, Florida 32399
Customer Contact Center:
850.487.1395
www.MyFloridaLicense.com
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