Making Davis&Stirling act works.

For those of you live in California condo life, heard it many times, Davis & Stirling Act. As if to say we have something useful to us, and some of us thought the law makers care about us. But did you know, it offers no penalty to offenders? They can do everything opposite of what it says and still can get away? If you find the board members cheating the election, what are you going to do? The answer is, you can only hire an attorney and we don't need a law to tell us that. Some of you think it's only the election but other serious problem won't be solved as long as the same wrong people take the control of the office.

Many of the issues posted in here may well be solved if the right person take a charge and with the all members that stand behind them.

At least in California, there are two things needs to be done.
* One of them is to MC(management company) be required to have business license with back ground check. At this time, even a career criminal can start a MC any time they wish and no legal obligation. It's only attracting wrong people in the wrong place, often huge amount of money is involved.
* Another is to, as I said in the beginning, making Davis & Stirling Act a punishable law. Current effectiveness of the law is like saying "If you catch a purse snatcher, you can hire an attorney and sue him."

What I encourage you to do is to post names and (Email)address of California lawmakers who are involved in this issue(I doubt there is any), in here. And send your letter, Email to those representatives. If you know other web sites such as this, related to California condominium situation, let the other people know our discussion in here.

The problem is too big to each individual association, even more so to each person. We have to get all association in California to get our voice heard.

There is a lot of pending CA legislation. Check our echo-ca.org. In fact, there is AB 567 sitting on our governor's desk right now which will establish an oversight organization for all HOA's. He has said that he will not sign anything until our state passes a budget. Anyway, the cost of AB 567 will be borne by the HOA's in our state. Guess what--increased assessments for all of us. GREAT! I want less government intervention in my life, not more.

AB 567 has flaws. http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/07-08/bill/asm/ab_0551-0600/ab_567_bill_20080818_enrolled.html

Besides the fact that owners would be charged for this thru higher fees, there is no guarantee in the proposed bill that you would get what you pay for. “(d) Information and advice provided by the bureau has no binding
legal effect and is not subject to the rulemaking provisions of the
Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section
11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code).”

And “1380.300. Any person may request the bureau's assistance in
resolving a dispute involving the law governing common interest
developments or the governing documents of a common interest
development. On receipt of a request for assistance, the bureau
shall, within the limits of its resources, investigate the dispute,
confer with the interested parties, and assist in efforts to resolve
the dispute by mutual agreement of the parties.”

So what good is it? Why waste our money?
The governor vetoed AB 770 saying we didn’t need it!!!!

Also watch AB 1921 which would rewrite the Davis Stirling Act. It does not address any of the problems stated by YoshimiZ1 it would only renumber the Act and includes many changes that favor management and “the industry” not the homeowner. For example it would have allowed charging homeowners for the time it takes to retrieve a document.

I’ve heard rumors that AB 1921 may be re introduced in the next session. Please take the time to go to The California Law Revision Commission’s website http://www.clrc.ca.gov/H850.html
read and comment on their recommendations. After reading them, believe me you will have comments!

Also sign up for the newsletter at http://www.cahomelaw.org/ They keep pretty good tabs on these things.

Jane

That’s the problem, the board frequently neglects, ignores or bypasses it’s duties; frequently failing to obey it’s own rules and the governing documents. Which would include a rule to hire only licensed management. This is why we need a place to file a complaint and have it investigated.


It doesn’t matter how many rules the association makes or how many laws are passed. They are completely worthless without some enforcement mechanism.


Monitoring hiring practices, every move, every rule, every action by the board of directors and management is definitely overboard, however, when an action by these entities is questioned by a member, there should be someone, something to address the question. If it is determined that there has been a transgression of the law, the parties responsible need to be held accountable for their actions.

I admit I’m not amenable to yet another government agency, but in this case I feel one is definitely needed.

Jane