 Welcome to Condo Insider and thank you for joining us and we have with us today as our guest Daria Loy-Goto. She is the chief enforcement officer for an agency state agency called RICO. So what does RICO stand for? RICO stands for the Regulated Industries Complaints Office. Not to be confused with Federal RICO which is Racketeering and Organized Crime. Okay and so what part of the state government is RICO part of? RICO is a division of the Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs. Our oversight is over anybody with a professional or vocational license. So contractors, mixed martial arts, massage therapy, we prosecute licensed activity and also unlicensed activity. Okay and so when we talk about enforcement because you're the chief enforcement officer, right? What exactly do you do? I want to talk about your job first. What do you do? Sure. Well just by way of background I've been with the agency for a while now. I started as a staff attorney. I was the supervising attorney for over 10 years with the agency and in the past three or four years had been the complaints and enforcement officer. So right now I handle administration work on behalf of the office that includes meeting with the RICO supervisors addressing overall issues including you know our presence in the community, what areas of enforcement we're focusing on dealing with legislative issues as they come up and working with the various boards and commissions on enforcement related concerns. And how much staff do you have to help you? We have 11 intake investigators and those are the folks that initially they answer the phone, help you file a complaint, conduct preliminary investigations from the office. We have 21 field investigators and we've got offices on four different locations off-island. So Kona in Hilo, Kauai and also on Maui. And those are housing primarily field investigators. All of the legal work is done from the Honolulu office and we have 10 staff attorneys right now. And how many complaints do you get every year? Well we were right now we're regulating over 49 different professions and vocations and if you'd like a complete list of everything that we have oversight over you can go to the RICO website. And what is the RICO website? It is CCA which stands for commerce and consumer affairs.Hawaii.gov backslash RICO RICO. And that's streaming now underneath. Okay perfect so that if anybody is interested they can go there. Now one of the well two of the industry said that are part of your oversight that you your department oversees are condominiums and managing agents right right I mean that's the focus of our show because that's what we do with the with condo insider. So what kind of complaints do you get regarding condos and managing agents? Okay well you know the office is a busy place yeah and I really have to give a lot of credit to our staff because they deal with a lot of callers every year a lot of complaints that come in every year. In 2016 we processed somewhere around 2,800 complaints and helped to resolve an additional 7,000 matters. So in terms of that resolution piece it may be callers calling to our office because they they might have a dispute with a licensee. So for example I got my car fixed and I want a copy of the repair estimate but the licensee won't respond to me. If we can help facilitate that short of the consumer filing an actual complaint with us then we're happy to try to do that. So a lot of that the piece that we do is giving information getting people to the right place. When you have complaints in your title everybody seems to find your office so a lot of what we do on the intake piece is helping consumers maybe find where they need to be we need to the right agency that they need to be talking to. In terms of condominium information Rico's jurisdiction is limited in terms of condominiums. Associations are self-governing which really means that they should be handling the governance issues in house but one area that Rico does assist with is on the records piece. Okay why don't you explain that? Sure I as self-governing entities I think that really one of the one of the ways that owners can participate is to make sure that they have all the information about the association that they need. So the law does provide that owners are entitled to to access certain types of information and we have a handy-dandy brochure information for condo owners about access to information and that's available on the Rico website and that really follows the statutes that address condominium association records and lays out for owners what they may be entitled to see and the reason why owners need records is to meaningfully participate in the self-governance process they need to have access to information. So you're talking about board minutes and can they get financial information? Board minutes some financial information copies of audited financial statements that that the association may have any written agreements about about who's managing the property things like that. And why would they ask for these documents why would owners be asking for these documents do they tell you why they want them? You know I think really owners have have a legitimate interest in what's going on a lot of the complaints that we receive have to do with of course association fees special assessments you know having a property and maintaining a property is a very expensive proposition. So a lot of the records requests we get usually follows some kind of an assessment that's or an increase in maintenance fees and now owners want to have that information and want to know why why you know why is this coming up now and what is it going to go toward. And is this because when they go to board meetings or they talk to their board members that they're not getting the information directly from them is that why they have to come to you? You know a part of it might be that that they want to see information you know they want to have copies of information they want to be able to review information and may make a determination on their own. Okay and so who usually makes these complaints? Who asks for these documents? Typically it will be owners. Unit owners. Unit owners who have who have questions about what's going on. Well you know you were talking these questions are about unit owners asking for documents. What about complaints regarding managing agents? What kind of complaints do you guys get managing agents? You know the complaints are really going to are really going to vary. I sometimes there is a little bit of a disconnect between what that owners might have on who's really doing what in terms of is it the board that's taking the action? Is it the managing agent that's doing it on behalf of the board? Or is it a managing agent that's doing it on their own? So a lot of the questions that we get I think have to do with who really is making the decisions and it could be that an owner may perceive that the managing agent is is making us making a determination and it may really be the association that is voting on it. In terms of other kinds of complaints we get a lot of complaints about a licensed activity that may be going on in the condominium. Like what kind of a licensed activity? A lot of what our office does in terms of a licensed enforcement has to do with unlicensed contracting activity and that also includes unlicensed electrical work and unlicensed plumbing work and I actually just saw it and a legal action that our office finished up and it had to do with an association that had hired an unlicensed person to do what I thought would be pretty extensive plumbing work in the building and that work included replacing fixtures, opening drywall to access, and actually opening concrete walls to access water lines. So if I had any words of advice for condominium associations is you know if you're gonna do construction work, if you're doing electrical work, plumbing work then you really should consider hiring a licensed person to do it. Okay I guess they're not coming to our seminars because that's her mantra. That's her mantra of an insurance associates you know represents almost every condo in the state and I mean that's her big gripe. I mean you have to use licensed contractors. You just need to do that because there's just too much exposure to an association especially if you're you know insured by one of her carriers. Right? If you don't use a licensed contractor then it creates all kinds of problems for the building. Sure you can have a leak that happens in after you've sealed up the concrete again you can have one leak in the basement that's occurring that nobody's caught and that can re-grill havoc and then in terms of doing other fixes especially if it's in common areas that the public has access to I can see where liability would be an issue. We're talking about complaints explain the process to our audience how if somebody wants to make a complaint how do they do that? Sure well first of all they they can call our office or they can download a copy of the complaint form off the RICO website. And I think we have I think we have a copy of the website somewhere I mean they can go to the to the website address that's flashing across the screen right? Right yeah we have one page that talks about how to file a complaint with our office print the form fill it out we are going to ask for specific pieces of information and we are going to ask that the complaint form be signed but essentially it's it's putting down and letting our office know what you think the complaint may be. When the complaints received from our office by our office what we're going to do is we're going to take a look at it first of all see if there's a possible licensing law violation. You know a lot of times consumers will come to us they think something should be a violation but sometimes the licensing laws don't address what the consumer is really getting at. For example being told having to wait too long in your doctor's office that's actually not covered by by the licensing law so that's not something that we would that we would further investigate as a complaint. The other thing we do is we we look at the complaint and make sure that there's sufficient information for us to go on. We get a lot of tip information and we do accept tip information but incomplete information can be hard on for our office to act on. So for example there's a licensed activity happening in Kapole. We need a little bit more to go on. So the next thing that that we're going to look at is to make sure that there's sufficient information on that complaint form. For condominium written condominium requests for for condominium documents. We're going to ask consumers to fill out a written request for condominium association records. One of the things that we learned over time with these kinds of complaints is that a lot of it a lot of the disconnect between owners and associations about the kinds of records that owners were wanting to get was might have been boiling down to some confusion about what records might actually be available. So what we did was our awesome condominium team put together a written request for condominium association records. It really tracks the statute in terms of what an owner can get and it asks the owner to sign it, date it, submit it to the association so the clock can start ticking in everybody understands what's being asked for and how soon the association be should be responding. And under this form how how much time does the association have to turn over the document? Generally about 30 days and that's by statute. Okay you know we're going to take a break now we're going to take a break now for about a minute okay and then we will come back and we will talk to Daria Loy-Goho. Okay thank you. Okay well welcome back to condo insider my name is Jane Sugimura and I'm your host today and we have as our guests Daria Loy-Goho who's the chief enforcement officer for RICO. That's the state agency that does the enforcement of the condo statute and so we're very happy to have you here. And Daria was talking about the process on how someone can make a complaint to her office regarding condominiums or managing agents and we're flashing on the on the show the website for anybody who wants to go there and it's got lots of information on what exactly RICO does and how to make a complaint and how to work through that system. But you know let's talk about the statute. There is a statute condominium statute 514b 154 and you were involved when when you were involved in discussions when this was being legislated it was Senator Baker who put this together and and I can remember being in the room and she was just very frustrated because she was getting these complaints every year about documents that condo boards would not allow their owners to have right right and what she did is she so there are various portions because the statute was enacted in pieces so in one place it said you had to turn over board minutes and in another place it said you had to turn over financial records and then in another place it says you have to turn over contracts and so 154 is where Senator Baker took all of those little pieces and kind of put them in one place right right right right so it's not like she created a new law she just took all the pieces that were already there and put them in one place so that people wouldn't have to search all around the statute to figure out what in fact they could get and you were talking about a form so the form you said tracks the statute right and we you know we were fortunate enough to be working with Senator Baker for a couple of years now and you know she's really has been such an advocate for owners and I have to say that you know so many legislators this year have been so responsive to inquiries and questions and concerns that condominium association owners have and especially because the cost of living in association the maintenance fees are going up so but you know the legislature has been so responsive in terms of trying to move us forward on getting owners to where to a good place where they can be accessing the information and really meaningfully participating in what's been going on so following what Senator Baker's good work on this what we did was create this written request for condominium association and it basically lists the documents that you list the documents that you can get so that means that all night if you want minutes then you just check the boxes just minutes and you have financial records what other and it's got a place for condominium management agreement insurance policies contracts invoices and it's got a little space on the space on the side so you can fill in the dates and the times any other specific information that you want to put in and and what our goal is is that owners will use this fill out what they want and give it over to the association and this gives the association something very straightforward to go down and say yes we have yes we don't have and then what we what our team also came up with is a response to request for condominium association records so when the association is responding back they can use the Rico form fill it out nice little table and give this over to the owner with the with the record and if they're not going to give the records some explanation about why they're not going to get the record what's been really helpful for us is if the records question isn't being met if there's still some confusion what the consumer can do is give us both of these documents with their complaint form and that really has helped to jump start any Rico investigations that we're going to enter into and you know in the old days we would get you know 20 20 30 pages of emails back and forth I want this I want that I want this I want that and what the forms really did was it reduced it down to you know two very discreet pieces of paper and it really has helped move these investigations much faster and you know these documents that the owners are requesting they're not free are they there's they're not they're not and that's reasonable because that means somebody's somebody's some employee at some management company or the association has to take time to look for these documents and and make them available to the owner so there is these things are not free right right there is a charge there is a charge and that charge is specified in the it is set forth in in statute right yep and so so it's so in other words the unit owner can get documents and a lot of these documents some of them like minutes and even some of the like the declaration and the bylaws some of them are available if the association has a website right I right we are aware that a lot of associations are putting a very very basic documents bylaws declaration seems like that making it making it available electronically right which is great and we've also seen some websites that will require a password for the owner and then that that has some measure of protection on so they can go in and look at their financial statements and and and they some of them may not be able to print it but at least they they have access to it right and then and then if they want a hard copy they can ask the association they and they are charged a reasonable charge for that copy that's what we understand yeah and and the charge in the the the amount that a person has to pay is set in the statute in other words it shall not exceed more than whatever right it is right it's in the statute yep it's all covered it's all covered and also if someone in the association or the managing agents have to you know actually go and spend time there is a charge that is assessed to the unit owner for that right and so it's not like it's it's a big secret they are told before they make the request exactly what it's going to cost how much the how much the anticipated cost might be and also the fact that some of it might be free right and some of it according to the statute you can borrow it in other words you can loan you can go and inspect it right inspect it at the managing agents or the associations offices and you can kind of read it or review it right there in the office but if you want to take a copy then you will have to pay for it exactly exactly and with this under the statute under 5154 is there a date is there a deadline within which you the association has to produce these documents you know I think 30 days is still that is still the is still the watchword and for in terms of giving records over mm-hmm and after the statute was enacted and after you got these forms did the number of complaints or requests for documents go down or are they still about the same no we we actually are our committee thinks that the number of complaints the number of inquiries that we're getting has been reduced okay and we think a lot of it might be laying it out for owners which can and can't get mm-hmm and I think that it has helped to kind of focus the conversation mm-hmm for a lot of folks yep and and one of the things to you know and I think I asked you this question before the show can someone still ask for 20 years worth of board minutes I I think people can still ask for 20 20 years so this is a message to those associations out there who don't have a document retention policy you might talk to your lawyer or your accountant or whoever does these things and get yourself a policy and get rid of those old records because if someone makes a request and you have them then you have to actually go and look for do the search right well we we're gonna apply the law yeah we're gonna apply the law yeah yeah okay well I want to talk about a new rule too there's a there was a there well it's not a law it's a bill House bill 1498 mm-hmm and that does that amended 154 and what it did is it it basically said that and I guess this was a an issue with your agency well the contract the employment contract right some some of the inquiries that we were still getting had to do with the employment contract especially for resident managers so one of the issues that kept popping up was those employment contracts might have some information that is that is sensitive information that might not be disclosed you you know applying other other privacy laws and this and that so one example is a Social Security number for the employee data birth information bank account information things like that so you know maybe under elsewhere under Hawaii law that information would would be redacted or not appropriate to disclose and what the bill I think tried to do was to clarify and to provide some guidance for associations on what information would be redacted and and I think just to get to the point one of the complaints we heard or one of the stories one of the more stories at least I heard was that that there was a request made by unit owner to an association for the resident managers contract and when the association finally turned it over there was so much redacted that you really couldn't you know figure out what was in the agreement because everything was redacted and I and I think what this bill clarifies is that you can't redact compensation and you cannot redact the job description or the job duties of the resident manager the site manager or whoever it is that the association hires to do the day-to-day operations of the building and and and it does specifically state that privacy information protected by state and federal law is you can be redacted as well as the private cell phone number the email address the Social Security number any bank account information and so it does say that you can redact those things but it specifically says you cannot redact the compensation or the job description which is what I think the the requester was trying to find out what is this person getting paid right and what is what is his job right I mean because that's what I think that that was what I was hearing that you know that's what they were trying to get information about and they would ask for the contract because five four five five one fifty four says you can have contracts and then they're told oh no but that's an employment agreement and that's not a contract right and so this bill if it is signed by the governor and I think we think it's going to get signed for a hospital 1498 does clarify that this employment agreement is a contract that must be turned over must be provided if requested by an owner right and you you describe that so eloquently Jane much much better than I did but yes that's what we think that this bill does a record did offer comments in support of it because we do think that clarifying is going to be helpful for both owners and associations and that is the information that they want they want to know how much this this employee is making and what they're supposed to be doing for that salary well let me just say one more thing because we're getting close to the end of the show and it seems to me that you know what you're saying or the message you're trying to get to the associations you know if you were transparent and if you would communicate with your owners maybe you wouldn't have a job you would have more time to spend with other you know 49 industries jane so you know so you would have more time to spend with other right we always have a lot going on we push the education piece hard because we want we want people in this area to get the information that they need to participate in the governance and to be happy with the associations that that they're living in so we're really trying to be responsive to concerns in this area and you know we we are pleased as punch when associations are saying can you go to the RICO website and use this form because it'll make it much easier for us right and you know and and I really appreciate you being here because you know there's so much information that we want to get out to the unit owners right so that they can participate fully and and and try to make the relationship between owners and the boards much more less stressful right and so that everybody because we all have to live in the same place yes we need to learn to live together work together and get along and for our viewers thank you for joining us today and thank you Daria for joining us and giving us all this information don't forget the website the website address for all of your issues that you regarding documents and complaints against boards and managing agents and be sure to tune in next week we're doing an update on the legislative our legislative update is next week so please join me and Richard Emory and we will doing the we will be doing the legislative update on new laws thank you very much for joining us today