Prompted by complaints, state plans to investigate condo panel

By Joe Kollin
Staff Writer

August 4, 2004

The long-beleaguered state Bureau of Condominiums, constantly criticized for not doing its job of helping the state's 1 million-plus condo owners, is about to be investigated by the auditing arm of the state Legislature.

The Legislature's Office of Program Policy Analysis & Government Accountability will begin an investigation later this month, said its general counsel, Jan Bush, on Tuesday.

She said a final report should be issued in January, in time for the start of the next legislative session.

How the investigation is conducted has not yet been decided, but investigators likely will want to hear from condo owners throughout the state.

"We don't have a specific plan yet, but we will certainly make ourselves available to receive information from the public," Bush said.

Outgoing Senate President Jim King, R-Jacksonville, called for the investigation in June based on requests from both condo owners and state Rep. Julio Robaina, R-Miami, who chaired the latest panel to study condo complaints.

The bureau is part of the Department of Business & Professional Regulation and was created to help educate owners about condo living, resolve disputes and investigate violations of state condo law.

Every condo association in the state pays a $4-per-unit annual fee into a trust fund to support the Bureau, about $4 million a year.

"We welcome the Legislature taking the opportunity to exercise its oversight authority," said Meg Shannon, spokeswoman for the Department of Business & Professional Regulation.

In 1990, the Condominium Study Commission, created by the Legislature, heard hundreds of complaints about the Bureau, as did Robaina's House Select Committee on Condominium Association Governance last year.

In 1997, the Department of Business Regulation's inspector general investigated, issuing a scathing report that called the bureau poorly managed.

Critics of the bureau welcome the investigation.

"The whole system is a bluff," said F. Blane Carneal, a Fort Lauderdale attorney who represents unit owners. "They don't have the power to do what they should be doing and they don't have the manpower to even do what they have to do."

"Hopefully, the investigation will show the inefficiency of this agency," said Jan Bergemann, president of Cyber Citizens for Justice, a statewide organization representing condo and homeowner association unit owners.

Joe Kollin can be reached at jkollin@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7913.
posted by Las Vegas at 1:00 AM