For more than a year, the CAI advocacy team has been moving forward sensible public policy to ensure greater safety in condominiums. Our efforts took a major step this week during a conversation with White House staff.
On Sept. 20, CAI and Florida Sen. Jason Pizzo (D-Miami-Dade County) met with White House officials to garner support for two pieces of federal condominium safety legislation:
- H.R. 8304. The Rapid Financing for Critical Condo Repairs Act allows the Federal Housing Administration to insure condominium association building rehabilitation loans made by private lenders. FHA-insured loans will allow associations to finance building repairs over 30 years, reducing the need for large special assessments on homeowners.
- H.R. 7532. The Securing Access to Finance Exterior Repairs (SAFER) in Condos Act allows condominium homeowners to finance a building repair special assessment over 20 to 30 years. Condominium homeowners may combine a building repair special assessment with existing mortgage debt in a new FHA-insured 30-year mortgage. Homeowners also have the option of financing only the building repair special assessment through a 20-year FHA-insured second mortgage.
During the presentation, CAI shared how many condominium housing units are in the U.S., the age of housing units, their geographic locations, and barriers to financing critical condominium repairs.
White House staff members were extremely engaged in the conversation. They shared that they’ve discussed these issues with the U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development and the Federal Housing Finance Agency. CAI is encouraged that condominium safety is a topic of conversation between the White House and federal agencies.
CAI representatives at the meeting included myself, Scott Canady, CAI’s federal advocate, and Phoebe Neseth, Esq., CAI’s director of government and public affairs. We were joined by CAI members Ron Perl, an attorney with Hill Wallack in Princeton, N.J., and chair of CAI’s Federal Legislative Action Committee, as well as Mitch Frumkin, RS, PE, president of Kipcon in North Brunswick, N.J., and Don Plank from National Cooperative Bank in Washington, D.C.
Aging condominium buildings and infrastructure has been a growing concern over the past year, following the tragic partial building collapse at Champlain Towers South Condominium Association in Surfside, Fla., in June 2021
>>We encourage you to take action to support H.R. 8304 and H.R. 7532. Learn more about condo safety legislation, laws, and regulations, and how CAI is advocating for sensible public policy.
