If there is one thing people hate almost as much as an assessment increase, it is properly funding reserves. Some owners look at those lonely accounts, chock full of unused cash just sitting there, and think, "Hey, let’s use that money now! That way, we don’t have to raise assessments this year!" Other owners look at the reserves and wonder if perhaps it’s okay to defer reserve contributions until a time when finances loosen up.
Hogwash. Continue Reading Who needs reserves?
This morning, House Bill 14-1254 (“HB 1254”) was passed by the Senate on 3rd reading on a 32 to 3 vote. The bill, which was amended in the Senate to require that fees and charges be included in a management contract to be enforceable, is now headed to the House for concurrence with the Senate amendment. We don’t expect there to be any problems in the House with concurrence and the bill should be headed to Governor Hickenlooper to be signed into law sometime around mid-April. Continue Reading Management Company Transparency Bill Easily Clears the Senate!
House Bill 14-1254 (“HB 1254”), sponsored by Senator David Balmer (R-Centennial) in the Senate, was taken up this afternoon by the Senate Local Government Committee. With a slight amendment, the bill was passed with a favorable recommendation to the full Senate on a 6 to 1 vote. Senator Vicki Marble (R-Fort Collins) was the only Senator to vote against the bill in Committee.
HB 1254 requires managers and management companies to disclose during negotiations on management contracts, and thereafter on a yearly basis, the fees and charges imposed as part of their management of associations and any other remuneration received as a result of the relationship which managers and management companies have with their associations. In other words, managers and management companies would be required to disclose any funds they receive from third parties that are in any way related to the associations they manage. Managers and management companies who fail to make these disclosures would be subject to investigation and discipline by the Division of Real Estate. Continue Reading Management Company Disclosure Bill Clears Senate Local Government Committee!
House Bill 14-1125 (“HB 1125”), which was sponsored by Senator David Balmer (R-Centennial) in the Senate, has just passed the Senate unanimously and without amendment on the consent calendar. In a legislative session marked by partisan politics, the fact that HB 1125 unanimously passed both the House and Senate is quite an accomplishment! HB 1125 will be…
Many times when enforcement action is started against an owner in a community, the first response is “Why are you picking on me? Everybody else is/has [fill in the blank – painted their house without ARC approval; installed new windows without ARC approval; modified their landscaping; left their trash cans out, etc.]” Then the formal response is accompanied by a dozen pictures of other homes in the community that have the same, or similar, violations. Face it, everybody who receives the enforcement letter from their association feels like they are being singled out, because they know at least one other person who has done exactly what they are accused of doing, and that other person hasn’t been reprimanded. Or have they?Continue Reading Selective Enforcement – Why’s Everybody Always Picking On Me?
Two bills that would have negatively impacted HOAs in Colorado are dead for the session. Here is what you need to know:
House Bill 1165
House Bill 14-1165 (“HB 1165”) was taken up last week by the House Business, Labor, Economic & Workforce Development Committee and was defeated by a vote of 1 Representative in favor of the bill to 9 against.
HB 1165 would have capped the retainage permitted in construction contracts to 5% and rendered unenforceable provisions in these contracts with higher a retainage. This bill would have impacted construction contracts for all HOAs with more than 4 units. In other words, almost every HOA in Colorado could have been affected by this bill.Continue Reading Two HOA-Related Bills Dead For the Session
House Bill 14-1254 (“HB 1254”) has just cleared the Colorado House of Representatives and will soon be introduced in the Senate. HB 1254 was heard last Thursday in the House Business, Labor, Economic & Workforce Development Committee. After extensive testimony on the bill by CAI members and illuminating questioning led by Representative Chris Holbert (R-Douglas County), the bill was unanimously reported out of the House Business Committee with no amendments and with a favorable recommendation to the full House of Representatives. The House passed the bill on 2nd reading yesterday. The full House passed HB 1254 on 3rd reading this morning with no amendments and a vote of 58 to 8 in favor of the bill, with 3 Representatives excused from the morning session and not voting.
The original draft of the bill, that was not introduced, would have capped transfer fees charged by management companies at $50.00. Obviously, management companies have every right to be compensated for the services they perform that are related to the sale of a home in an HOA and the costs attributed to the sale of an individual home should not be charged to all of the homeowners in an HOA. Instead, these are closing costs related to the sale of a particular home. Had the original draft version of this bill been introduced and passed, it would have led to an increase in assessments for all HOAs in Colorado since management companies would have been forced to increase their management fees to recover the costs of work performed on the sale of individual homes. Continue Reading Rewritten Transfer Fee Bill Sails Through the House!
After extensive testimony in the House Business, Labor, Economic, and Workforce Development Committee this afternoon, the HOA transfer fee bill (HB14-1254) passed out of committee, with no amendments, for consideration by the House of Representatives. The HOA transfer feel bill is sponsored by Rep. Labuda (D-Denver) and Senator Balmer (R-Centennial) and received bipartisan…
House Bill 14-1125 (“HB 1125”), introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Diane Mitsch Bush (D-Steamboat Springs), has cleared the House with no amendments and was introduced just yesterday in the Senate and assigned to the Senate Local Government Committee. Senator David Balmer (R-Centennial) is the Senate sponsor of the bill.
As you will recall, HB 1125 permits an association to publish email addresses and telephone numbers of members and residents of the association, if those members or residents first provide written consent to their association to publish this information. Owners and residents may withdraw this written consent, but such withdrawal of consent does not require their association to go back and “change, retrieve or destroy” previously published telephone numbers or email addresses. Also, the bill permits owners and residents to electronically provide or withdraw their consent to their associations.Continue Reading HOA Records Bill Clears Colorado House of Representatives
When we hear the term “burden of proof”, many of us think of the television crime shows we all watch such as Law and Order or CSI, and how we always hear that the prosecution has to prove the defendant’s guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt”. This “reasonable doubt” standard is the burden of proof in criminal cases. In general, the burden of proof, or burden of persuasion, is the duty placed upon a party to prove or disprove a disputed fact. Depending on the case and the arguments, either party can bear this burden.
In civil cases, however, the burden of proof is a lower standard and only requires that the party who bears the burden prove or disprove a disputed fact by a preponderance of the evidence or by clear and convincing evidence. Colorado courts define “preponderance of the evidence” as proving that it is more probably true than not, and have defined “clear and convincing evidence” as proving that it is highly probable and there exists no serious or substantial doubt. It is up to the judge or jury hearing the case to decide whether a party has met its burden.
