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O
n Thursday, October 20th, members of the
Legislative Action Committee, CAI staff and our
government relations firm traveled to Trenton to
meet with our state legislators. We divided into groups
and met with seven legislators and one staff member.
We had two major goals for our meetings.
Our first goal was to put a personal face on CAI and
tell the story of who we are. Approximately 1,350,000
NJ citizens live in 519,000 homes in nearly 6,700 NJ
community associations. We told personal stories about
our experiences and the benefits to communities that CAI
provides we also explained the support we can provide to
our legislators. Residents of Community Associations pay
$1.5 billion a year to maintain their communities. Homes
in community associations are generally valued at five to
six percent more than other homes.
Our second goal was to solicit their support on two of the
major bills we are working on.
Bill
S-1832/A3823
provides foreclosure relief to our
CAI-NJ WORKING
FOR YOU
By Jean Bestafka,
Renaissance Homeowners
Association
Jean Bestafka
communities by allowing lenders who hold abandoned prop-
erties three fair options; take advantage of NJ existing expe-
dited foreclosure laws; pay monthly association fees; or allow
community associations to provide temporary rent receivership
to get homes occupied, maintained and fees paid.
In general, the legislators we met with were aware of
the problems with foreclosures in New Jersey and asked
thoughtful questions about the bill S-1832 that CAI supports.
We discussed the fact that the foreclosure crisis has a big-
ger impact on common interest communities, as remaining
neighbors have to pay higher assessments to make up for
"As part of our legislative day
we spent time walking the halls
of the State House, visiting
the Assembly and Senatorial
wings of the building where
legislators have offices."