View the petition here.

Honorable Governor Murphy,

We, your humble constituents, the undersigned, respectfully request for your support and to sign S3661/A5043 into law.  We can’t impress upon you enough the broad reaching effects that this bill becoming law will have on the average homeowners, and families, in New Jersey, those whose backs you promised to have.

Throughout the state there are tens of thousands of families that are either currently suffering or stand to suffer due to the misinterpretation and abuse of the 2017 amendments to Chapter 106 of the Planned Real Estate Development Full Disclosure Act (PREDFDA).  Thousands of families are burdened by ongoing litigations against them, many helpless and without representation, turned away by their title insurance companies.  Thousands fear liens being put on them.  Hundreds of thousands of private dollars already having been spent defending against greedy, for-profit, corporations, which suffer from years, even decades of mismanagement and negligence.

This bill stands to clarify misinterpretations and assumed rights and obligations that these homeowner associations, for-profit corporations, believe were bestowed upon them via the 2017 amendments of Chapter 106 of PREDFDA.

Hal Wirths (R-Sussex) says “This bill protects people from surprise assessments and compulsory fees” and “You can’t change the rules in the middle of the game”.  Many community members have gone 40, 50 even 60 years, generations, not even knowing there was a homeowner association that claims to manage common property they weren’t even aware existed and never benefited from.

One community has been slapped with a lawsuit demanding 5 years of back dues and fees (now 7 years and accumulating) and would leave the association, for-profit corporation, with open-ended authority.  They would be able to set next years’ dues and fees to anything they see fit, with no checks and balances and nobody to answer to.  Who is going to pay for the hundreds of thousands being spent on legal fees to sue us?  We will!  They will retaliate and force us to reimburse them.  We certainly don’t need to be harassed and abused by these greedy corporations.

The Radburn Bill, as it has been referred to, was put in place to strengthen voting rights in common communities and establish election participation protection for residents of these planned developments, not give a ghosted power to these home/lake association boards to strongarm their so-called members into surprising and new mandatory fees and dues, and, on top of that, not allow them voting rights.

S3661/A5043 has passed the Senate with a unanimous vote (36-0) and the General Assembly (75-2-1).  The voice of the people is clear.  There is overwhelming support for this bill by the legislators and your constituents.  Please don’t allow special interest groups to dissuade you from what is right.

Assemblyman Parker Space claims “Steve, Hal and I believe it is regrettable that some homeowners and lake associations are being led to believe that A5043 is somehow taking something away from their associations because one cannot take away something that was never given”.  It became clear that the true intent of the 2017 amendment was not being served and A5043 simply clarifies and returns the honest and true legislative intent of the bill, so that it cannot be abused to hurt the good people of New Jersey.

Please sign S3661/A5043 into law.