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Arizona Homeowners Coalition
Legislative Update
Legislative update #1
1/30/2023
 
            Welcome to all of you that are new to our coalition. While I try and use this coalition to help individuals and individual communities all year long, the real purpose for this coalition is to provide an opportunity to have all of our voices heard at the State Capital to promote legislation to help all 3.5 million of us living in these communities.
            Before I get into legislative issues, I’ll provide a brief summary of the Supreme Court case challenging the constitutionality of the state statute for Condominium terminations. Our coalition filed an Amicus Brief in support of the unconstitutionality of that law. For those interested in seeing the brief contact me and I’ll send you a copy of the file. There have been a total of 4 Amicus briefs filed in support of the unconstitutionality including one from the Goldwater Institute and one brief filed by CAI in opposition. CAI’s brief was presented by 7 attorneys including three from out of state. Next the Court has to include the case on an agenda for consideration to hear the case. This case now has nationwide significance and I’ve no doubt that the court will hear the case, I expect the decision for the court to hear the case will be made in early February. From there a date will be established for oral arguments.
            Since the election was finally certified I’ve been very busy attempting to get our legislative agenda sponsored. While I’ve been only partially successful I did succeed at getting at least a partial implementation of our top two priorities sponsored and introduced. I’ve also worked with several legislators to get bills affecting HOA’s and Condo’s drafted to support specific request from their constituents.
            Action, I need this coalition to write Senator Hoffman Chairman of the Senate Government committee at jake.hoffman@azleg.gov urging him to include Senate Bills SB-1387, SB-1470, SB-1034 and SB-1358 on his remaining committee agendas at the earliest opportunity, Today. Please do not read one more word of this update until you’ve written Senator Hoffman, there are only two more committee meetings left to include these bills or all the work that went into getting these bills created dies for this session.
          This promises to be a very contentious session between the legislature and the governor. You will see the unprecedented use of the veto power of the governor to defeat any partisan Republican legislation and to promote her agenda. I fully expect the veto power to be used to kill good non-partisan legislation to force the legislature to adopt her budget priorities. 17,000 voters in this state created this mess and we will all suffer thru it for the next 4 years.
            Today marks the last day that legislation can be introduced from the Senate, the House has until 2/6/23 to introduce legislation. But the real challenge is the deadline of 2/17/2023 which is the last day that a bill introduced in either chamber can be heard in a committee other than Rules committee in that chamber, hence my earlier call for action.
HOA related Bills introduced so far include:
SB-1387 Board duties:
            This bill is our top priority legislation for this session and will establish the truth about the board’s duties to the community of owners first and then to the association. Most significantly is to treat all homeowners fairly and to comply with the law. This link provides the text of this bill. SB 1387
SB-1470 Homestead exemption:
            This bill was our second priority legislation addressing common expense assessment and non-assessment liens, but was drastically reduced based on objections and delay tactics from the HOA industry. All that is left is still significant, and will restore the applicability of the Homestead exemption which protects up to $400K of equity in a primary residence from foreclosure action. That has been denied to these communities for the last 38 years. The sponsor has already agreed to work on the original bill for next session. SB 1470
HB-2251 Condominium Insurance:
            This bill is a brilliant bill (that I wish I had thought of) that allows individual Condo owners to submit claims against the community’s insurance policy based on damage to the common property and their units from failure of the common property. This will finally allow unit owners a direct link to file a claim against the Condominium insurance policy if the association refuses to pay for damages to their unit from a common property source, or to file a claim themselves. HB 2251
SB-1034 Flag ban prohibition
            This bill finally gets it right and prevents the association’s from restricting the flying of any flag that is not obscene, offensive or promotes violence. Flying a flag is a fundamental expression of free speech whether you like what that flag represents or not and has been my argument for this statute for years. SB 1034
HB-2298 Authority over public roadways
            This bill started out simply removing the grandfather clause in the statute and would have prevented any association from regulating any public roadway. I worked with the sponsor to draft it that way. However, the sponsor capitulated to the demands of CAI and provided language that allows the community to vote on continuing to allow the community association to regulate roads that they do not own. While better than the original statutes this simply continues to perpetuate the lies of CAI and could allow a simple majority of owners voting on the issue to decide this forever for their community. We will need to work hard to amend this bill to its original intent or defeat it as is. HB 2298
SB-1049 Betsy Ross Flag
            This bill continues the past practices of simply adding another flag to the protected list of flags that the association cannot restrict. This process has led associations to believe that they can restrict any flag not protected even though their CC&R’s have no restriction on flags. I will work hard to kill this bill in favor to SB-1034 from the same sponsor. SB 1049
 HB-2301 Political Activity
            This bill attempts to clarify the existing ability of homeowners to exercise political activity in their own communities. This is based on attorneys telling communities that if they are a gated community, they can prevent both residents and non-residents from any political activity. Just because an attorney says anything doesn’t make any of it true. HB 2301
SB-1358 Solar water and water conservation devices and practices
            This legislation expands on the protections of solar water heating devices and any water conservation devises or practices in these communities. SB 1358
There are other bills being worked on including the condominium termination bill that have yet to be dropped.

Bills introduced by (AACM) Arizona Association of Community Manager, that benefit community managers and not homeowners.

SB-1384 Annual Meetings
            This bill is written to facilitate the conduct of annual meetings for the community managers with little to no value to homeowners. More will be provided later to reflect the concerns that I have with this bill. This bill will have to be significantly modified by amendment or defeated altogether. SB 1384
SB-1456 Records Request
            This bill again written by AACM to limit association records that can be requested and to require justification by the homeowner for any records request. I oppose everything in this bill. SB 1456
 
Additional bills of significance to homeowners
 
SB-1162 Home based business restrictions; prohibition
            This bill prevents municipalities and counties from restricting non-intrusive home business. This bill does not currently apply to HOA’s and Condominiums but may be the basis for legislation in the future to apply these same protections to these communities as well. SB 1162
SB-1347 Home buyer assistance program
            This bill will establish a state publicly funded program to provide low interest loans for first time home buyers. SB 1347
 
HB-2315 Primary residence property tax exemption
            This bill will provide an exemption from property taxes for any residents that has paid up their mortgage. HB 2315
 
            Those of you that already have accounts on the AZLEG.gov website, should post position in favor of these bills except for the two introduced by AACM, in the Request to speak program using the “my bill positions” menu item, using this tutorial.  Only SB-1049 and HB-2301 are currently assigned to be heard in committee this week. Only those two bill will allow request to speak statement to be posted. Do not respond “yes” when you file your request to speak to the committee unless you plan to be at the committee hearing in person. I will be there representing all of you.
 
            If you do not have an account on the AZLEG.gov website and wish to use that powerful tool to have your individual voice heard on each bill, write me at azhoatruth@gmail.com and I’ll create an account for you when I’m at the capital next with a generic password of “password” I’ll need you full name and e-mail address that you want to use as your user name. Out of all the things that frustrate me the most about fighting the HOA industry on your behalf is when any of you ask me to create accounts for you to save you from having to travel to the capital and then you don’t use that account to support legislation. So please if I create an account for you use that account to let legislators know you support the legislation we put forward.
 
Thank You
Dennis

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To advocate, protect, support and advance the best interests and rights of all Common Interest Community members.
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Disclaimer
We are not attorneys and any advice provided in this correspondence is not provided as a legal opinion, and cannot be used as such. We offer this advice based solely on our research and experience in dealing with HOA issues, in an effort to inform and communicate the literal written statutes and case decisions available to the public.

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