I was not able to watch or attend the live Minnesota Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee on Friday, but caught up over the weekend on the replay. The goal of the committee meeting was for the amendments attached to SF1750, the MCIOA bill designed to reform HOAs/CICs in Minnesota, to get passed and sent to the Senate floor for debate. The bill’s authors were successful.
There was public testimony from a variety of sources, including Matt Greenstein of Greenstein Sellers, Sarah Bosso, attorney and HOA board leader, Patrick Hynes of CAI-MN, and Brock Kohen of FirstService Residential. Their testimony was compelling as they all continued to hit on various aspects of the legislation that were considered non-starters, including caps on fees, limitations on what property management companies can charge, limitations on subcontracting arrangements, caps on foreclosure legal fees and the general tonality of short leashes being attached to HOA board leaders’ necks.
There were several comments made by senators during the meeting who believe that HOA boards “control the very lives of those who live in their HOAs,” and Senator Lucero trumpeted the fact that this is a “consumer protection bill,” designed to make it “fair” for homeowners to go about their daily lives.
Following the testimony it was a near consensus among senators that the amendments to SF1750 accommodated the concerns of those who testified and those who wrote in opposition to the bill. This was against the backdrop of some confusion that existed among those very senators, who admitted they couldn’t properly track any of the changes in the amendments to original bill given the sloppiness of the written document to which they were referring. Senator Jeff Howe (R-Rockville) was the most vocally opposed prior to the vote, saying the bill is just not ready for prime time.
But, no matter. In the end the amendment passed, and is now headed for debate by the full Minnesota Senate. It is widely believed that this legislation will sail through and likely become law. We will continue to monitor it over the coming weeks.
You can watch the whole committee meeting from Friday yourself HERE. Start at about the 2:15 mark.
I just want to thank you for affirming my own dismayed view of this hearing. Truly felt a little sick afterward. I have a meeting with one of the bill’s authors later this week and have to wonder if I should just cancel it. They’ve got religion. Sen. Pha, at the end of this hearing, breathlessly related a story about someone who couldn’t “get rid of” a bad board member for five years (implied: “that’s how HORRIBLE HOAs are; we’ve got to step in”). I would like to know more about that. I suspect she got very little factual information, just a juicy tidbit of an anecdote. What was the issue: was an election skipped? Who wanted to get rid of the board member; was the person actually elected and a few people just didn’t like that? But an ombudsperson’s office would help sort that kind of situation out — the creation of that through the other SF would be enough, and wisely so, for this year. I am an association member and hardworking board member.