The June Issue Includes:
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Premieres
- The Importance of Maintaining Your Digital Records
- Executive Producer Highlight - Centennial Bank
- Pet Corner - Abby's Animal Rescue
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Florida's Tax-Free Holiday Starts Today on Hurricane Supplies
- Kudos
- The Florida Statute Service
- Quote of the Month
- July Birthdays
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Did you know that the Florida Legislature passed legislation a few years ago requiring every Board Member to take this class? If you have been off the Board for even a day, you must re-take the class, or execute an Affidavit stating that you have read, understand your Documents, the ramifications of non-compliance, and agree to enforce your Documents. Make sure you attend this year’s Certification Class to get the scoop on what is expected of you as a Board Member.
You asked for it – and we are granting your wish. We feature separate classes for Homeowners Associations, Condos and Co-ops, and Mobile Home Parks. We have updated this course to comply with the changes to the law. Join us for two hours of preparing you for your role on the Board.
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Date:
Tuesday, June 4
Class Time:
6:30 p.m.
Location:
Our Melbourne Office, 1301 Bedford Drive, Suite 102, Melbourne, FL 32940
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Date:
Thursday, June 13
Class Time:
6:30 p.m.
Location:
RDV Sportsplex 8701 Maitland Summit
Blvd., Orlando, FL 32810
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Attorney
Date:
Thursday, June 20
Class Time:
6:30 p.m.
Location:
Our Melbourne Office, 1301 Bedford
Drive, Suite 102, Melbourne, FL 32940
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The 2019 Mini - Legal Update for
Board Members
Attend via Webinar, Conference Call, or In Person!
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Every year, new laws are passed by the Legislature. New case law affects our communities. How is a Board Member or Manager able to keep up with the changes that transpire? Sit back and let Attorney
Brian Hess
update you on what is happening and what may be coming down the pike.
This class covers the changes in the law that directly affect community associations. It is not the two hour Legal Update for Managers (which is a required class for Managers that includes peripheral laws). If your management company would like us to provide that course to your managers, please call our Public Relations Department for more information.
This class is being offered as both a webinar and an in-person live seminar at our Maitland Office, so you can choose your preference.
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Date:
Thursday, June 27
Class Time:
6:30 p.m.
Location:
Maitland Office, 1065 Maitland Center
Commons Blvd., Maitland, FL 32571
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The Importance of Maintaining
Your Digital Records
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Few statutory provisions are more exploited by owners, cause more expense and (legally permissible) harassment, or disrupt an association's operation, more than Fla. Stat. §§ 718.111(12)(c) (relating to condominium associations) and 720.303(5) (relating to community associations other than condos, timeshares, and cooperatives). Those subsections require that such communities make certain association records available within 10 working days of receiving a statutorily compliant request. As you may have learned during our Board Member Certification courses, the records which must be produced in response to such a request include essentially all written association records, with limited statutory exemptions (
i.e.
, individual owners' confidential information, attorney-client privileged communications, etc.). If associations have no policy limiting the frequency or length of these inspections, owners could ostensibly issue requests on a weekly or even a daily basis, effectively forcing the community’s operation to a halt. Thus, it would benefit all communities to implement such reasonable limitations, in addition to undertaking steps to facilitate
production
of records rather than having owners visit management, counsel's offices, or for self-managed communities without a clubhouse or similar facility, having to incur the cost of renting space or even having someone come to an individual Board Member’s home, to complete the inspection.
In addition to these records maintenance and inspection requirements, the Florida legislature recently implemented a requirement that by no later than January 1, 2019, all non-timeshare condominium associations with 150 units or more must create and maintain a website, which pursuant to Fla. Stat. § 718.111(12)(g), must contain and provide unit owners access to most of the records of the association which would customarily be the subject of a records inspection request anyway. Although it is merely implied rather than expressly required that Chap. 720 associations maintain such websites, and also because many community associations are already required to provide certain records via their websites and provide login credentials (
i.e.
, to password-protect certain records and make them available to the membership), we may be the first Florida law firm to publicly recommend that all associations consider digitizing ALL of their official records. Doing so would avoid the time-consuming task of producing those records or making them available in response to a records inspection request (or requests for production of records issued in litigation). Indeed, if all records are organized in digital format and readily available
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to all owners, the association's full and complete response to such records inspection requests could be a form letter directing owners to the web page(s) where the records can be accessed, saving significant time, effort, and in some cases, management and/or attorney’s fees. Likewise, litigants could be supplied limited credentials permitting access to certain responsive folders, and/or the association’s counsel can be supplied credentials to review the records and produce only the pertinent materials much more efficiently, resulting in similarly reduced litigation costs.
We anticipate that this recommendation will be attractive to all communities who must either pay management or counsel to address these requests, to managers who personally handle them on a daily basis, and especially to self-managed communities whose Board Members would no longer need to personally attend to these requests in a relatively short time.
If you are contemplating whether a paperless system can work for your community, please feel welcome to contact us to discuss whether we can assist in implementing such a system for your community, including locating local or statewide vendors to assist in the necessary web development and scanning of the Association's physical records. We are also available to assist clients with implementing protocols to ensure that physical originals are maintained as required, in addition to ensuring confidentiality, and that all other statutory and contractual provisions are met in taking the association toward a more advanced, efficient, and effective document management system.
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Executive Producer Highlight
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This month, we are highlighting one of our Executive Producers, Ron Peck from Centennial Bank. Centennial Bank specializes in helping Associations with their banking needs.
We asked Ron Peck about how his company can assist your association.
Q: How can our associations benefit from your service?
A: Centennial Bank specializes in banking services for associations. From Lock Box (Assessment collections) to investing with various CD’s to association loans.
Q: What is the one thing that people probably won’t know about your service?
A: How extremely easy & simple to understand our pricing model is.
Q: From your experience, what advice would you give to an association?
A: Mandate 100% funding of reserves.
Q: How can an association save money by using your service?
A: Transforming into an electronic platform for your unit owners assessments, payment methods (Coupons, ACH, credit cards, debit card, e-check), accurately downloading your accounts receivables, etc. all will help with efficiencies of your day to day operations.
Q: What sets your company apart from your competition?
A: Centennial Bank has been a strategic banking partner representing hundreds of management companies & associations for over 20 years. Most all of our account reps hold Community Association Manager (C.A.M.) licenses & are active with your local C.A.I. (Community Associations Institute) chapters to help board members better understand their role as a Board of Director.
To learn more about how Centennial Bank can help your Association contact Ron Peck at (772) 486-3955 or
rpeck@my100bank.com
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Abby's Animal Rescue is a non-profit, no-kill animal rescue who helps lost or abandoned animals find forever homes. Abby's holds adoption events every Saturday and Sunday from 1 p.m. - 5 p.m. at PetSmart on East Colonial in Orlando, FL.
Abby Blum, originally started and worked with A New Beginning Pet Rescue, Inc., which has been in operation for 16 years. During that time, over 10,500 animals...including dogs, cats, several barnyard animals, guinea pigs, rabbits, ferrets and even several reptiles....have found forever homes.
Even though Abby has split off from her original rescue and formed a new one, our goal is to carry on the legacy of finding
wonderful, forever homes for
as many animals as possible.
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Thor has been with our rescue for nearly a year now and it's breaking our hearts. Thor had a rough past; he was mistreated, lived on the streets and more than likely was used as some sort of bait dog based on the condition he was in when we got him. He is also heart-worm positive, but has been receiving treatment with us. Thor does not do well with most male dogs, but seems to like larger females and a few other types of dogs (he's picky, but with the past he's had, we don't blame him). He would do best being a single dog in the home, unless a proper introduction is done before adoption. Despite everything though, he is the BIGGEST baby ever! He absolutely loves people and attention and will crawl into your lap, whether you want him to or not. He paws at you to get you to keep petting him; it's the sweetest thing. He has nothing but pure love to give to his adopters and we would really love to see him get his forever home! Please, if you can overlook his few tiny, tiny flaws and give this loving boy a chance, he will be forever grateful!
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Florida's Tax-Free Holiday Starts Today
on Hurricane Supplies
Items eligible for the tax break from May 31 through June 6 are:
--- Reusable ice that costs $10 or less;
--- Self-powered light sources, $20 or less;
--- Gas or diesel fuel tanks, $25 or less;
--- Non-electric food storage coolers, $30 or less;
--- Packs of AA-cell, AAA-cell, C-cell, D-cell, 6-volt, or 9-volt batteries, $30 or less;
--- Self-powered radios, two-way radios, or weather-band radios, $50 or less;
--- Tarpaulins or other flexible waterproof sheeting, $50 or less;
--- Tie-down kits, $50 or less;
--- Portable generators, $750 or less.
The rental or repair of items doesn’t qualify for the exemption, and items sold at airports and theme parks are not included in the deal.
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Sharleen Marshall of the Meadows South HOA had this to say about our March 30th Embracing Community Gathering presentation of
“The Magnificent Board Members: The 2019 HOA Board Certification Class:”
“Very Informative. A must take course, for anyone on an HOA board. Very well put together by an excellent staff. Thank you so very much for this wonderful event/class.
I appreciate all the hard work in putting together this event. Looking forward to taking more classes.”
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In early May, Debra Zimmerman of Sentry Management’s Tavares office dropped a note to our Senior Collections Attorney,
Alan Schwartzseid:
“Customer service is superior and precisely ONE of the reasons I advise my communities to contact Clayton & McCulloh.” Comments like this make our day. Thanks, Debra!
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Clients and Non-Clients
Get Yours Now! Limited Amount Available!
The Florida Statute Service
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The Florida Statute service provides the prefect place to organize all the Florida Statutes you need for your Community Association in a beautiful green leather-like, gold leaf embossed three ring binder. The service binder features all the pages in plastic sheet protectors and indexed with numerous "how to" articles included as a bonus. Our newly improved binder is larger than our previous binder to accommodate any of your Association's Governing Documents.
There are four books:
Homeowners Association (Chapter 720)
Condominium Association (Chapter 718)
Mobile Home Park (Chapter 723)
Cooperatives (Chapter 719
There are "how to" articles on the following topics:
Amending Governing Documents
Collections
Covenant Enforcement
Fiduciary Duty of Board Members
How to be a Director
Annual Meeting
Marketable Record Title Act
Complimentary annual updates to the books will be provided electronically by the 15th of September and January of each year. The cost of each book is $69.23 (tax included). Order yours today through our website using the button below
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July Birthdays
July 1 - Amanda Herx, FirstService Residential
July 3 - Teresa Brantly, 4139 Management
July 6 -Arlette Tejeda - Sentry Management
July 6 - Dennis DeGuzman, Souther Grove Condominium Association
July 10 - Paul Torola, Formosa Gardens Residential Community Association
July 12 - Christy Pollock, Sentry Management
July 15 - Joe Geric, Overlook at Parkside at Errol Estates Condo Association
July 16 - Patricia Ferris, Evergreen Lifestyles Management
July 16 - Dennis Ramsey, Highland Lake Association
July 18 - Bruce Schmidt, Townes of Southgate Condo Association
July 30 - Christina Miranda, Homeowners Association of Sky Lake South
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Orlando Office: Maitland
The Clayton & McCulloh Building
1065 Maitland Center Commons Blvd.
Maitland, FL 32751
Phone: (407) 875-2655
Fax: (407) 875-3363
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Melbourne Office: Suntree/Viera
Baytree Corporate Park
1301 Bedford Drive, Suite 102
Melbourne, FL 32940
Phone: (321) 751-3449
Fax: (321) 751-3450
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Toll Free: (888) 793-1486
After Hours - 24/7: (407) 808-2553
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You are receiving this e-mail as you fall into one of the following categories:
* You are currently a client or client's manager;
* You have requested to be on our mailing list;
*as a former member of BCAM, you are provided a subscription to the C&M mailing list; and/or
*as a former member of NECAM, you are provided a subscription to the C&M mailing list.
If you elect to be removed from this e-mail service, we will no longer be able to send you seminar invitations, information on changes in the law concerning Community Associations, newsletters, or any other information regarding the Community Association industry. You will not receive solicitation for business unless you have requested that information. We sincerely hope we can continue to assist you with the challenges that face Community Associations today through this service.
When replying with a question please include your full name
and the legal name of your Association (no acronyms, please, unless your legal name on the Article of Incorporation lists an acronym.)
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