 Welcome to condo insider. You know, I was thinking the day we've probably done about 175 shows on association living primarily condos. And it's a great educational tool and we've been trying different formats and I think I mentioned she the last couple of times that I've been host that we're looking at kind of an educational format once a month where we don't have a guest but I talk about a topic and we have some slides and we talk about some issues and I thought today we might do a little bit of a review of where we stand with the legislature and all the condo bills that were proffered to the legislature back in January of 2020 and kind of where things stand and also talk about a seminar I recently attended on federal legislation. We don't talk about federal legislation a lot, but you know there's quite a few bills that have an impact on condominiums throughout the United States. But I'd like to just take a few minutes to review and and I think that's what we're going to do today. In fact, I know that's what we're going to do today. The first thing I just want to tell you is kind of review kind of the industry. With our state legislature we've had as many as 150 bills introduced in a given year, meaning there's a proposed 150 changes to the current law. In the year 2020 we only had about 29, if I remember correctly, but I introduced and we kind of say that's because it's an election year and because of all the problems the state has they don't want any controversy on an election year so it was kind of a lighter load than normal. And so we had about 29 bills introduced and before the COVID-19 crisis hit us only eight remained in the sense the normal political process had wiped out 21 of them and either had hearings or didn't have hearings or didn't get hearings and and so they died a natural death, leaving only eight when the COVID-19 crisis hit. The legislature took an adjournment and only announced recently that it's coming back to handle state business on June 22. That being said, in a way, because they have to they're starting where they stopped, but they pretty much made it clear that they have a lot of priorities to deal with the budget and the COVID issues that they're not going to really hear all the bills that were still active that the pipeline I have tells me that the various key leaders are told that they can provide two bills each to be a part of the agenda that they're going to want to push as much as they can back the next year and only deal with those bills that are critical. I thought it'd be also a good dimension to you that you know this is a this is a big issue having bills with the laws are and obligations and bills and fees and things along that line. Who represents you the board and or the owner or for the legislature and there's two organizations primarily. One is Community Association Institute, which we call CAI, and the other is the Hawaii Council Community Associations, HCCA believe it or not HCCA was the oldest lobbying and education group in Hawaii founded by Aaron Cheney many years ago and currently had by a great industry advocate and great lawyer Jane Sugimura. CAI is interesting and it's a Virginia based industry organization, but they have the right to appoint for every chapter where Hawaii is a chapter. The delegates for the legislative action committee and they usually get recommendations from the local chapter board and who to appoint. What's interesting about CAI is that the membership of the committee the lack committee by their rules has to be an equal number of lawyers management company owners vendors type of people so no one person or one group dominates the decisions I mean it's a it's a very wide group. The delegates or the legislative action committee representatives of CAI are appointed for two years. That ends this year in a sense, they'll have to be read reappointments at the end of this year. They're more than 10 years on the lack. And as you may or may not know I'm the coach here along with Phil Nerney of the CAI lack and, and I have eight years in so I guess I, I can, I can go for two more years. The Hawaii Council committee associations really is dominated by owners and not by industry management company and or vendors or lawyers. We certainly have those on the board. But if I looked at it that they don't have a specific rule with regard to how many people can be from each group but is dominated by homeowners and the two organizations and I'm on the board of directors of that organization. They're very closely together, because it makes more sense that if we speak with one voice to the legislature, although if we don't agree we all speak with our own voice so it's, it's not a slam dunk. I would tell all of you out there listening that you should thank the volunteers to do that they put tons of hours in every year, reading the bills writing written testimony going down the legislature and testifying. Anyway, that's kind of who represents you and you should be happy that someone does represent you because I can go back two or three years ago where they were trying to fool with maintenance fees right mandate certain levels and, and they had also some other programs over the past that had overwhelmingly negative testimony, but people seem to put in bills and don't really ask the industry too much about it until they already put it in. So let's kind of recap the state where we stand with the state legislature. It comes back June 22. As I said, there are eight bills that are remaining and still alive technically, although we expect the legislature to only hear maybe a couple of them. It's critical for us in a way because there were two bills and a bill 2421 and Senate bill 2425 that basically took away the sunset date for the original act which was act 195 and 196. What do we mean by that is sometimes the legislature is not sure it's a good idea. They will pass a bill. It's a sunset on June 3 2020. Meaning give it a trial run see if there's any hidden conditions unknown circumstances. The bill 2421 and 25 had sunset dates on it and Senate bill 2421 was the one where they corrected the priority of payment issue where you no longer could foreclose on a unit for unpaid fines and legal fees and things along that line, which you could do before that bill was enacted. And so if that bill were to sunset. Even if they want to deal with it in the future, you end up with this kind of void of what were the rules from June or July 1 2020 until the new bill got passed whenever it got passed maybe next year. So leaves a void with what was going on and then you get the arguments in court. Well, I filed under the old law and the law sunset and what goes on so it's kind of important that Senate bill 2421 gets passed out and signed so that those hard work of those provisions for priority of payment, which protects the homeowners becomes permanent law. Senate bill 2425 was act 196. And what that did was expand the mediation and arbitration opportunities for homeowners with disputes by their boards. And I see expanded it that not only could it be an owner versus board or vice versa. It could be a board member versus a board member or board member versus the management company, and by voluntary agreement. They can make a binding arbitration versus mediation. And this is paid for by the real estate commission recovery fund, which all associations pay into every year. And so, I can tell you heck I've analyzed the reports of the results of this mediation, it's been very very successful. Not all of them have been resolved and the ones that don't resolve, frankly never end up in litigation everybody just says you're wrong and other guys don't know what happened, but nothing happened that kind of goes away. But the reality of it is, we don't want to lose this opportunity to try to settle disputes without spending a lot of money of the owners who have to the boards have the association funds which is everybody's but we want to try to settle disputes among ourselves and and the Senate bill 2425 act 196 expanded the rights to mediation who can participate in mediation and allowed for binding arbitration of both sides agrees they can put behind them once and done and for all. So we're hopeful, and we've sent the message to the legislator and the powers to be the please make sure because up until the coven 19, there was zero testimony against these two bills. Moving through quite nicely, all positive testimony, no negative testimony. And so, we're hopeful that they, if they pick once from our industry they're going to move out that they would choose those two. A couple of the other incidental bills just for your information one. You collect these fees from a condo associations every year. I want to say that fun has just under $2 million in it. And so why collect the fees and we're not using it its purposes education and mediation. And so the that particular bill allow the real estate commission to suspend these payments by condominium association. So we're hoping that the recovery fund had sufficient money in it and so it's a good thing we like to see that happen but it's not as critical as the first two I mentioned, the controversial bill that's kind of still there that had no affirmative or positive testimony for it, except from a 10th grade environmental class in some high school. And so what they said is that they wanted every high rise condominium. I think a high rise was defined as 10 floors or more to be required to put waste oil cans and some storage room downstairs. So people who cook in their apartment could come. They could put the waste oil from their frying pan, put it in a container go down the elevator and put it into another container, and they would pick it up for recycling for for energy. The problem with the bill in the negative testimony was is that it wasn't thought through to the extent that not every facility has a room to put these drums, and there is currently zero waste haulers who are willing to pick up the and do with it. So even though it's a conceptually a nice idea. The bill itself wasn't carefully thought through and it's still alive and all the testimony by the industry is against it. The 10th grade class has every one of their students right in their favor of it. I would address that because it's not practically feasible, although the idea certainly I give the class credit they have a very interesting idea on what to do with respect to the bills. So anyway that sums up the state legislature coming back June 22 very modified schedule, primarily going to deal with the budget. We don't want to see our two bills sunset. That happens with the other six bills, and we're going to take a short break and come back and talk about the federal side. Aloha, I'm Keisha King, host of Crossroads in Learning on Think Tech Hawaii. On Crossroads in Learning, our guests and I discuss all aspects of education here in Hawaii and throughout the country. You can join us for stimulating conversations to enrich and liven and educate. We are streamed live on Think Tech biweekly at 4pm on Mondays. Thanks so much for watching our show. We look forward to seeing you then. Aloha. Welcome back to the condo insider we had that nice short break and I too would thank all the sponsors of think tech. It's a wonderful community forum. And I know in our industry, the legislators want us to do as much as we can to educate volunteer board members, as well as owners on the rights and obligations of living in a condo because it's based on the principle of self governance and, you know, if we the board are doing a good job and owners have tons of rights under our statute. On the federal side I mentioned to you that there's a lot going on the federal can be divided into two categories. The first being COVID initiatives. With the COVID and viruses issue. We've seen the typical moratorium on debt collection. We've seen the housing initiative relief fund, where they're trying to provide funds available so people don't lose their home, or lose their apartment through eviction. We see what we call limited liability legislation, wherever condo opens your pool and someone gets COVID-19. They can't make an argument and sue the association and blame their disease on the association. There's a limited liability version. And then there's allowing condominiums to have access to some of these programs the SBA programs for funding if they have issues they need to address because the COVID-19 I'm not going to spend a lot of time on that. The other legislation not related to COVID which has been going on for several years but I do want to briefly mention them would be, first of all, is going to be the amateur radio provision. There's really more homeowner associations where the law basically said you can't prevent as an association an owner from putting up radio towers. The shortwave radio homeowners who want to put up radio towers as part of our our safety and security and ways to communicate if other things are down. A nice backup system and been a real emergency. They want to be able to do that without any rules or restrictions. So, if they're in a homeowner association, I could put up a hundred foot radio tower in my front yard. This legislation is designed to enhance and allow antennas but with some restrictions on location and height and other aspects that might take away from the beauty of the community. The second one, which is really a critical as I'm going to call disaster relief. I've all heard of, you know, the disaster relief we do in the time of our hurricane. You know, and you may not know it but because these are private roads and private property for a homeowner association and condominium. You're not eligible for any FEMA relief. They can't spend any money helping you clear your roads or clear the debris in your condo whatever may be as a result of a disaster like a hurricane. This is private property. So this particular bill which has got traction and moving well through the federal law allows FEMA to provide assistance and support for homeowner and condo association in the event of a natural disaster. And so that's a good thing because particularly for homeowner associations who have miles of roads at time, but if it's a private road currently FEMA doesn't have the ability to help. And we don't think that's fair and reasonable because we're all taxpayers and and so CAI is working very hard and has good traction with regard to that. And the third is to do with, you know, a simple topic. Some people like me when I work in this industry, and because there's all sorts of credentialing certifying that I have the skills and ability and education and classes that I might want to take courses. And all these education initiatives that are in currently law allow universities and in schools to provide programs and teaching with government assistance but don't allow industry organizations like CAI or others related to other industries to provide credentialing where that person who wants to get in that business can get some financial relief from the federal government with regard to, you know, the education side of this. So those are active initiatives of the federal government CAI supports them our local Hawaii industry supports them. And I would tell you from my experience that takes years for this stuff to happen. Most likely one to happen in the next year or two is probably the radio ham radio and the, and the one with regard to the FEMA, they seem to be supported by lots of members of both houses. CAI also makes national policy which it distributes, and they're kind of initiatives policy initiatives. They're always kind of generalized in general way because every state has its own laws, and the top priorities we have today are number one assistance animals. We all know the problem with assistance animals and you know I'm getting on my phone every week from some organization called therapy animals were felt this form and get a certificate. You can take your therapy animal on the plane or the association has to let you keep it and that policy initiative recognizes strongly the need of disabled people to have their, their assistance animals. And I think there ought to be some regulation where it's controlled so people can't take advantage of it because right now. Most organizations are saying or most government saying, you can't ask any questions to make them prove that they have legitimate need for an assistance animal and there's got to be some balance. The policy formation they're going to have is relatively simple. A lot of associations have old governing documents, and believe it or not they have restrictive covenants. There's somewhat incentive to racial issues or discrimination issues like the handicap. And so the federal proposed initiative is to allow easy ways for any association that has a discriminatory covenant to be able to delete it and without having to go through a whole lot of humbug with all the owners and get it into that whole sensitivity issue as designed to comply with the federal law and the intent and what I consider the goodness of America or all residents here we're all entitled to the rights under our Constitution. The other policy initiatives and they have is going to be on manager licensing. The managers, frankly are rarely licensed anywhere in the state they're required to be registered, but it's going to take the position that registration and education are important and licensing not so much. That's their policy. I haven't seen it and I've seen drafts of it but that's one of the things they're working on right now is trying to set some some guidelines to state legislatures and others can see a balanced approach to registering condos even they're not equal. You can have a two unit condo or a thousand unit condo or or condo where the man is becoming only does the financial statements. One size doesn't fit all so the idea behind the policy initiative is to set some standards with regard to what we think is an industry is correct. And the final one I know a lot about, although I don't know what they're proposing if they just told me in this seminar is changes to the reserve study. Or reserve studies have been a really big issue with respect to condo associations and not so much homeowner associations in Hawaii, and it's a requirement of the statute HRS 514b, but you know there's different types of reserve studies like there's different types of accounting. So they want to set some standards of what prudent practices are for doing reserve studies. And it's probably a good thing but I haven't seen the language yet because they're still holding group meetings to talk about the various issues with regard to reserve studies and and that's kind of where that is going. So that's the policy initiatives. But I want to say to all of you out there that you know all of you have resources available to you. What is probably one of the best resources is the CAI the CI online.org website. You have huge resources on 1000 topics, and they even list what different states do. So if you're really troubled with an issue on house rules or, or delinquencies or collection. So you have a simple choice of going to CI online.org and showing the real estate commission puts up boldens and a CI and a CCA do seminars, which are wonderful and we have this show condo insider which is a really good effort. And we have really reasonably good people watching it remembering it's on YouTube so you don't have to be here only a Thursday at three o'clock you can get the information anytime you want. So, you know that's a those are those are really good resources with respect to how you can get information. Now getting involved is really easy. We say to all of you if you're going to get involved, you know, first of all join a CCA or CI and be on their member list, you'll get emails, and you'll get notices and you're saying this bill is up for adoption send in testimony. All you have to do is go to the legislative website, Hawaii legislature register register requires you to do three things one pick a username to pick a password. Three, give them your email. And then your registry, and then you can go into the site and type in Senate bill 2421. And when there is testimony being taken, you can file a little form online and say opposed or against, you're going to attend the hearing or not attend the hearing. And you can by the plug of a button, it'll go to all the people involved in that particular bill or that initiative. And we hope that more and more people get involved because the legislature is greatly motivated by people's testimony, even though the industry has two strong advocate groups who work on this all the time. It helps us we go out all the time and ask, please then says send in testimony, please send in testimony. So they don't see we're not alone in this initiative. But anyway, that's kind of a summary of today and what's going on with the state of Hawaii. That's going on the federal side with the policy initiatives of CAIR. And we gave you some resources to go look things up. You're always welcome to call into the show or send us an email for information. We do want to thank you for watching condo insider, and we will have another show next Thursday at three o'clock.