By Eric Glazer, Esq.
Published May 15, 2017
So as you now know, Florida condominium
law is amended to make it a crime for board members to:
a) forge a ballot
envelope or voting certificate used in a condominium association
election; and
b) destroy
official records or refuse to allow inspection or copying of an official record
of a condominium association… in furtherance of any crime.
There was a lot of talk this legislative
session that these new laws would scare volunteer board members from running
for the board out of fear of now facing criminal prosecution. I just
don’t get it.
Unless a director plans on forging or
destroying ballots or deliberately blocking an owner’s access to records in
order to cover up a crime, I just don’t understand why they would be frightened
from now running for or serving on the board.
News flash……….it is also illegal to use
the association’s funds as your personal piggy bank. If you do, you will
face arrest and possible incarceration. That has always been the law and
certainly that hasn’t deterred people from running.
Last I checked, attorneys can get
arrested and incarcerated for stealing from their trust accounts. Doctors
can get arrested for Medicare fraud. Yet, the medical schools and law
schools are packed.
People who have no intention of breaking
the law should not be deterred from running for the board. Instead, they
should be happy that tampering with condo elections is now a crime. They should be happy that
directors who hide records to conceal a crime may have time to think about it
from their prison cell.
People who want their livelihood or
profession to be respected are not scared or dissuaded when regulations are put
in place that require them to be professional and maintain certain standards of
professional conduct. On the contrary, those standards dignify the
profession and should be welcomed by those who enter the profession with only
the very best of intentions.
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