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April 28, 2005
General Legislation Information
Here is the scoop on some California Legislation. Did you know that you can follow California legislation by going to www.sen.ca.gov where you can plug in a bill number and subject/author and pull up any bill from the current or prior session. You can find out what the legislative analysts say, and sign up for updated versions of the bill. And you can find out what various interest groups are saying by the bills by visiting sites such as California Legislative Action Committee, Responsible Neighbors, and California Association of Community Managers.
Collections Issues – Foreclosure Restrictions: There has been bad press in the past few years about foreclosures of CID property for small assessments. The Associations claim that the owners ignored notices and the Boards were fulfilling their fiduciary duty to collect assessments. The press stories claim that Associations are abusing privileges granted by statute and documents by using nonjudicial foreclosure as a means of collection. SB 137 would seriously curtail collections processes of any debt under $2500 by eliminating the ability to move toward foreclosure. The clear intent of the bill is to stifle foreclosures as a means of collection of delinquent assessments that do not add up to $2500. The bill has a strong and determined author, and is co-authored by leaders in both houses of the California government. Some effort is being made to soften its effect by seeking amendments to the bill. Last year, a similar bill (AB 2598) was defeated after an all out effort by industry groups that try to help associations cope with difficult issues was made. The PR effort lead to a veto by the Governor, who requested that rather than a drastic changes, incremental changes to the foreclosure laws should be considered. SB 619 is a bill that proposes some lesser changes to the foreclosure laws relating to notice and other topics. CACM (manager’s group) is the sponsor of this bill. Stay tuned – these are hot topics in California.
Election Bills:. SB 61 calls for secret balloting processes; however the means of implementation have been criticized by some as difficult. SB 186 curtails amendment campaign processes by limiting communications that can be sent to owners. Both bills cover elections including for the Board and for other subjects such as special assessments and updating/amendment of document projects. The bills presume that association elections are problematic but ignore that fact that apathy is a rampant problem in CIDs.
Records Inspection and Contractual Matters: AB 1098-David Jones, is a bill proposing considerable reform in records inspection matters and elections. It would allow inspection of all association records, even those that are privileged via executive sessions and attorney-client communications. It would eliminate bidding and contracts from subjects that may be considered in executive sessions (closed meetings). It ignores the fact that the Corporations Code has some language that if incorporated into the Davis Stirling Act, would satisfy some of the concerns obvious in the bill.
You can be informed and read the bills by searching for them at the site noted above. I will continue to provide periodic updates on these bills. ...
And other topics. Come back for a visit.
Posted by Beth Grimm at April 28, 2005 9:28 PM