 Another day of condo insider Hawaii show about living in an association. It's good for board members as well as owners and anyone else that might have an interest in association. Today we're going to talk about educational opportunities for board members and owners. You know this past legislative session, we saw a lot of arguments that we should make at government housing instead of private housing where we need more government regulation because board members simply don't know what they're doing and they need to have education. But well, I don't know there's a lot of educational resources here in the state already. So I've invited my good friend back, Scott Shirley, it's you again. And you use that term good friend loosely. And just remind everybody about your educational background as far as teaching and things like that. Well, I have been teaching real estate continuing education for over 20 years and I've also specialized for close to 25 years on fair housing issues and disability issues, which we've discussed before on this show. And I was also, for the time I was on the real estate commission, I was a condominium review committee, which also involved condominium education. And so what is the condominium review committee slash education? Kind of what is their goals and what do they do and kind of how do they meet and how do they get involved in educating people about condo living? Well, personally, I think at the real estate commission level and with the condominium division at the commission, it's very important to them about education that board members and owners know what their rights are, what their duties are once they become a condominium owner and a member of that association. And the emphasis on that part of it of being a condo owner and getting educated has really been a big push at the real estate commission level for the last year or so. When I was down at the Douglas trade show in March every year, they had a booth at the trade show of the real estate commission and they had brochures on all sorts of topics. I want to say I picked up more than a dozen brochures, which were simple explanations for homeowners and or board members on what the law is, what their obligations are with respect to all aspects of the association law. Well, I've noticed recently, I'd say probably within the last six months or so, on the real estate commission website, they've even added three or four instructional videos of events that they've held and they're just short videos like four or five minutes explaining certain things just like those brochures do. So they are stepping into the 20th century and we're just waiting for them to get into the 21st century like all state offices. Well, a little later on this show, we're going to talk in depth about what educational opportunities they are. But the legislature just finished this past year and having been a lobbyist and been down at the legislature, I saw numerous bills where a group of homeowners or several homeowners would say my board didn't make a good decision, they don't have enough education, wanting to create laws with regard to education. Are you, you know what they're trying to do? What they're trying to drive? They were trying to pass legislation and different variations to mandate if you're going to be a board member, you must have this type of education. And the problem with an idea like that of mandatory education in order to be a board member is this is a volunteer program. And so how many people do you think would actually want to volunteer to be a board member if they were required to do certain amount of hours of education before they can even be a board member? It's like, well, you know, I've got other things in my life to deal with. I don't want to be on the board. You know, I think the other aspect of that was when you look at the education from my experience, we have the Condo Law 514B. And that law has brought aspects to all types of association. You have agricultural, parking associations, mixed-use, senior living. It's kind of like one size doesn't fit all. So if you're a parking condo association, do you really want to have all this education when your issues are going to be vastly different than a residential condominium, for example? Well, I think you make a very good point in that, that not all associations are the same, not all associations are dealing with the same problem. So how do you coordinate education or do you just make it a standard education, which may not even apply, like you pointed out, to their particular association that they're dealing with? Yeah, I think it's interesting, because during this legislative session, that particular law morphed into let's have mandatory education for conflicts of interest only. And I think that's interesting, because the law says you shall not vote as a board member if you have a conflict of interest. And you have an obligation to disclose the conflict of interest. But I did an analysis of all the mediations for the last, once it was 27 months, that were filed in the state of Hawaii, either board versus owner or owner versus board. And there wasn't one alleging a conflict of interest, you know, which I'm not saying there hasn't ever been a conflict of interest issue. But to rise to the level of making everybody take this education, why don't see some pervasive problem in industry doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. It's like that old saying, throwing the baby out with the bathwater. So you just pick one subject and apply it to all. And it just probably wouldn't have worked in the first place. I know you commented about the volunteerism, but did you see the bill that says that not only do they have to have education, they have to submit a financial disclosure statement because they want to make sure you don't have a conflict of interest. Yeah. And again, you look at the statute and what an owner is entitled to see in the way of documents. And now you want to make it so that a board member must produce their financials that now every owner is probably or possibly going to have the ability to see. And so again, volunteer, do I want them to know how much I spend on my groceries and this and that and how much I paid for my car and so on and so forth? But just think of all the government we can have. We can have that wall passed and then all the board members quit. Then we can have a draft or lottery system to serve on the board member and have mandatory board attendance, you know, because we just draft them because nobody's going to show up. If you have all these, I'm not saying education is not good. No, no, no, I'm just saying it's a broad problem for a broad industry that the documents don't show that the mandatory education is the right answer. We're going to get into what resources are available in the industry in a few minutes, but it seems bizarre to me. Well, I see that you, as I well know, you were very involved in going through all this legislation testifying for or against. And it sounds to me like you already came up with a solution if those bills had passed, right, that everybody quit and you draft them instead. You know, it also kind of morphed into what I'm going to call the licensing of the condominium manager who works for the management company. And they're saying, well, it's real estate. They need to have a realtor. We need to hold the manager accountable for the board's bad decisions. What do you have to say to that? Well, one of the things I really want to point out, and it was a big topic in the continuing education Corby of last year, which you and I did a series of programs on. And one of the big issues that confuses people, owners, realtors, the whole bit is the statute says managing agent. And the thing of it is, is when it's mentioned in the statute, management, managing agent doesn't mean a person. It means the management company. It's referred to as the managing agent. But under the management company, then you have people who work. You have people who do the financials. You have people who actually go to the board meetings and help take minutes and things like that or work on reserves and stuff like that. And the misconception in the industry is that these people are doing real estate activity. Well, they're not listing, they're not selling, they're not renting. They're doing work for the association that the association is the one that makes the decisions. Well, certainly requiring them to be licensed and have a real estate license that a sales agent would have makes no sense whatsoever. The type of education they get has nothing to do with the industry we're involved in. But to me, the misunderstanding is that as an agent, as a managing agent, number one, a managing agent has to have a real estate broker as the head of the company. It's those people who serve under him may not be a realtor in that case. But the other side of it is the managing agent doesn't have the authority nor can law give them the authority to not do what the principal says. So if the board's making the decisions, the managing agent may get a guide or advise them, but in the end, it's not the managing agent's decision, it's the board's decision. So you're not going to be able to hold him or her accountable for something that the board decided to do. Well, I remember quite a while ago, you were being blamed as a managing agent for the maintenance fee increase. But that's not your decision. The decision was based on the budget that was created and the board said, we adopt this budget and that caused the maintenance fees to go up. But that wasn't you personally who raised the maintenance fees. It was the board's decision. What's interesting, and we're going to get into a later show, all the statistics of mediation, what the real root causes are. But the bottom line is, all the humbug, the angry people out there, it's always about money. The maintenance fees went up, a surprise repair, the big cast iron pipe store where you have million dollar assessments. That's really what's driving it. The actual mediation cases don't reflect that problem. They reflect the ordinary things like, I shouldn't have been fine for the dog violation. And we'll get into that in a more another show. But the reality of it, do you think managing license is good? Well, if the problem we have within the state of Hawaii, and I don't know necessarily if it's a problem or not, you just have two levels of licensing. You have sales license, and then some of them eventually go on to a broker's license. Other states actually have separate licensing, like if you're going into property management, you'd have a property management license. If you're going into time shares, you'd have a time share license. So if they were to do something like that, they need another category. It's surprising to know that there are a number of managing agents who do have real estate licenses. Most of them are in active status, but they keep up with their continuing education and such. But as you pointed out, a lot of what you get in continuing education in the licensing exam have nothing to do with their day to day work at an association. And the real problem to me is benefit and cost in the sense that some of the bills require the employees of the association, not just the management company, to be licensed. You know, and you get into licensing, the first thing that can change cost money. You have to set the courses up. You have to pay to go. And at the end, it's still the volunteer board. Yep. Maybe we should have mandatory licensing of board members. There you go. They have to take classes. And we've got another legislative session coming up next year. Well, then we're back to the draft again, aren't we? You know, because I don't think it's an easy topic to answer. You know, certainly agents have an obligation to share their professional advice, but under a Supreme Court decision, they can't practice law. They have to hire a lawyer of the board to get legal advice. And so I think managing agents do the best they can. And some of the compromise language for lack of a better word was just to require registration of the management company executives under the broker, because they're certainly protected with having a broker with the money and the bonds and the insurance. The associations are, but to require every person to have a license when, in fact, the scope of work of a contract may be financial, only just pay the bills. And so why would they have to go through all this other training? Exactly. So it's a very broad industry and I think it's worthy of debate and discussion. But as an industry, nationally and locally, we've opposed the bills for licensing to date, primarily because they lumped us with realtors. And they didn't look at all the different characteristics of the scopes that work the size of associations, you know, and those types of issues. And it could be just become a boondoggle of all this requirement that doesn't provide a useful purpose, other than for the educator who gets paid to teach the people. So anyway, but And that would be you and I, but we're not complaining. I think everybody should know I support voluntary education. I think more members need to know what the rules are and they need to have competent managing agents. And the board as a whole can best decide where the agent is competent and giving them good advice and guidance or not. But I don't think necessarily some mandatory education problems can solve the issue because the issue is an agent can't override the board's decisions. They're ultimately in charge. And now we're in a minute, we're going to get into what educational free educational opportunities are there for board members and kind of the more the money goes with regard to our condo and fun. But first, we're gonna take a short break. We'll be right back with condo insider in one minute. We all play a role in keeping our community safe. Every day, we move in and out of each other's busy lives. It's easy to take for granted all the little moments that make up our every day. Some are good, others not so much. But that's life. It's when something doesn't seem quite right, that it's time to pay attention. Because only you know what's not supposed to be in your every day. So protect your every day. If you see something suspicious, say something to local authorities. Living in this crazy world, so caught up in the confusion. Nothing is making sense for me. Back to condo insider. We've had a little brief chat in the first part of our show about all the legislation last year trying to mandate education for board members, mandate, maybe financial disclosure of board members, and mandate licensing for property managers and maybe the association employees under the theory that the world is falling apart, the sky is falling, these boards don't know what you're doing, and they're causing all sorts of havoc with respect to that. But let's talk about education. I know you and I, it's impossible to educate us. You're what, this is true. This is true. But let's just assume for a second. We know that there are all sorts of free resources out there for people who are legitimately interested with respect to condo matters. And on that note, I want to tell our viewers that, you know, we have a hotline you can dial in at 415-871-2474. And to start off with my favorite form of education, how about condo insider? Is that an educational format? Well, I guess it is, except when you and I are doing it. But actually, you know, we've, I don't know the exact statistics, but we're one of the highest rated shows on Think Tech Hawaii with regard to viewers who can see it either live or on YouTube. And we try to pick educational topics and talk about issues. And we encourage owners who have suggestions of topics to let us know. We have coming up down the road topics on senior living, electrical vehicle charging stations, mediation and dispute resolution. So we try to bring interesting shows to everybody to in a format where you talk to some more depth than taking a course. But let's talk about Back to the Real Estate Commission, the Condo Education Fund. Where do they spend the money? Well, every time you register your condo association every two years, which is based on per unit, a portion of that money, as you have mentioned before on a couple other shows, a portion of that registration money goes into a mediation program. One of the mediation programs is specifically earmarked at a specific dollar amount goes to that particular program. Then also in that condominium fund goes to supporting condominium education. So let's just take as an example I've used this many times in many of my classes that you go to a CAI seminar that is being offered, let's just say the ABCs of being a board member or something to that effect. On their brochure at the very bottom on the back, it'll say partially funded by condominium education fund. Doesn't mean they're using all the money just for that one seminar, but they're spreading the money out so that more seminars can be held and they help subsidized a portion of that cost. And that's in my opinion a very good use for the money in helping subsidized having these educational programs for condo owners and board members. Let's take the real estate commission itself. Where does it invite education? We'll go to the industry organizations in a minute. But where and what ways do they deploy education? Well, one of the newest ways that they've been doing for probably two or three years now and it's still trying to get people to sign up for it is you can go to the real estate commission website and sign up for the email. And they will send emails which will include the condominium bulletin, which is only available in an online format anyways, and notifications of upcoming types of events. So not only do you get the condominium bulletin which has important information about condos and such, you also will get notified of upcoming seminars, be it these other organizations or recently. I think it was in April, they had one called condo Rama. And that was all the real estate commission putting together a program for condo owners, which they held at the state capital and gave a rundown and the notification. Well, that was one of the brochures that they were handing out at the trade show. And also it was going out via email to all the people who signed up for it so they get notified that there here's this free seminar happening at the state capital on a particular day. So they spend the money by number one. They have this online bulletin that they can sign up for at the real estate commission website. They sponsor seminars that are free where you can go down to the capital live and here on various range of topics. They support the industry seminars, which we'll come back to. But don't they have a hotline or they have a couple of things they have the hotline and remember the brochures you were talking about. If you happen, all those brochures that you happen to pick up are available online at the real estate commission. They have other material that's either available printed right there at the real estate commission office or online on what it means to be a board member, whether fiduciary duty and things like that all available to anybody who wants to either go pick one up at the commission office or pull it up online in PDF format. And then as you mentioned the hotline where they people can call owners board members can call to get advice from the condominium division. But we always like to point out that it's not legal advice. Yeah, well, I think the problem is, you know, and this was a some of the testimony on some of these other bills came up before by the Attorney General's office. The state, you know the relationship of owner or board member has with its association is really a contractual relationship. The state can impose obligations like getting three bids or election protocol, but they really can't get into a dispute between one side and the other. They have to be neutral by statute. They have to be kind of a neutral entity. And they can't be in a position. That's one of the flaws of an ombudsman. People look for an ombudsman to say, we have government take care of all the problems and order the board what to do. Well, most of that stuff isn't legal. They couldn't do because of the contractual statute between two parties when they enter into something. But the hotline, as I see the problem they have people want to use it as a gripe session. They call and they want the person answering to go tell the board they can't do that. When the reality of it is they're providing an education or resource. Yes, what the law is and where they can go to get information and not taking an opinion. Well, and I've heard it from other people, including realtors, including condo owners that they feel like calling the hotline. They should also be given legal advice and they're not allowed to give legal advice. They can tell you what's in the statute. They can tell you what's here. But they can't say, oh, yeah, your board acted illegally. They can't do stuff like that. Even if they were a lawyer, think about it. They're hearing one side, not the whole side. And they're hearing what that person on the phone wants to tell them not necessarily the whole truth and nothing but the truth forever more because in fact, they're all excited and they're all motivated. So it's got to be looking at the hotline as a resource to go find out where you can get information to help you with your issue. But they're not going to take sides and they're not going to provide legal advice. It's sort of like you've mentioned a couple of times where, you know, at the legislature, it was sort of this feeling that the sky is falling and chicken little the sky is falling, the sky is falling. And I've seen that before where a particular issue will pop up in the attitude amongst a bunch of people is, well, then it must be an industry wide problem that we must fix and then find out later what was only an issue at this complex in this complex, but not the other 1,900 complexes. So you've got to take that into effect when you're looking at these bills and the education that goes along with it. You know, in our industry there's a lot of organizations that do training in seminars and are really actively engaged in the industry. Let's put on some of the other seminars that are available. CAI, what do they have? CAI has a tremendous, you and I both have been guest speakers at CAI events in years past. They do legislative updates. They have ABCs of being a board member programs like that, but they have numerous programs in what I like about CAI in any of the organizations is the passion they have for educating condo owners. They all have a real passion on making sure owners understand what their duties are as an owner or a board member as what their duties are. But besides some lobbying and putting out some work product as far as best practices, CAI does seminars. They do this annual ABCs for new board members. The ABCs are being a board member. They have a newsletter with interesting articles on condo living, but the issue is you have to join the ACCI and an association can join or an individual owner can join. But they're not the only people in town to do it. You have the Kauai Council of Community Association that also provides seminars. I think it's seven seminars a year. And one thing about ACCA, they don't take any money from vendors, nor do they take any money from the real estate commission. They're all self generating their income. But the belong to ACCA for an owner, it's $10 a year. It's not a whole lot of money. And then you have the Condominium Council of Maui, which also does their own seminars, which you have to belong to the Condominium Council of Maui. And then CAI also goes to the Neighbor Islands, Kona, Kauai and those big islands. So there's quite a few industry organizations that people will just seek out and they're well publicized and then look for the courses that they have interest in or maybe the issue is affecting their association, but they need to voluntarily try to learn this, you know, and and you and I have seen the attendance had a lot of these things. So there are owners, there are board members who do seek out this education. And one of my favorites in March of every year that goes straight shows does a series on property management. And you can see vendors with boosts that they have over two days. I'm going to say a dozen or more seminars, legislative update, emotional support animals, how to do house rules that are really quite interesting. And and that's those seminars are all free as well. So well, I understand that you had like four of them this last trade show. You were doing four different seminars. And I also understand because I was manning a booth or associate that people came looking for you because they had just heard you in a seminar in it. So it appears to me that somebody like you at these trade shows seem to have groupies that follow you. Yeah, well, we had over 300 in each of my seminars. It shows there is interest by board members. And and we were kind of down to our last minute. So I just want to briefly talk about management companies themselves do training as well, right? Well, management companies try to do training. You and I have been involved in training as well, holding free seminars for board members that are part of our company and which have been very well attended. So that's one of the reasons I hang out with you. Let me kind of outtake this way and summarize as follows. We both would agree that education is important for board members. But there's a certain when you accept the voluntary position, you serve a certain requirement on your own to seek out information. But the industry between the real state commission, CAI, HCCA, Condominium Council of Maui, management companies, the Douglas Street Show, there's huge resources out there for people to learn and the condo insider. My favorite, the condo insider show. Although I'm thinking about going on a strike that I want the same pay as the other house, that they're on condo insider. And maybe I should go on strike. Or if you get that raise, I want to raise the guess kit too. Anyway, thanks to all of you for watching condo insider this week. We encourage you to look for educational opportunities, including condo insider and call them with questions. And we'll be back next week with another exciting show. And thank you, Scott, for being here tonight. Thank you for inviting me. Aloha.