(Connued from page 19)


If you believe in our important work and would like to support it, please make it a line item on your community’s annual budget to help fund the PA LAC each and every year. If you have questions or require any additional information, please reach out to me at my email address next to my photo. Thank you for your support!


ABOUT THE AUTHOR Eileen Ghenn is a former Board member at Stony Creek Farms Community Association and a Delegate for CAI’s Pennsylvania Legislative Action Committee. She welcomes your inquiry at eileenghenn@hotmail.com


nearly 20,000 emails and phone calls for our members to their legislators, this legislation was passed and signed into law by the Governor on July 1 !


Pursue the appeal of the DCA’s Radburn regulations (regarding election and meeting procedures). Our court filing was temporarily dismissed with instructions from the court to first pursue our requested changes directly with the DCA, which we are currently doing.


For those of you who don’t faithfully read it when it’s delivered to your office or computer, this Legislative Update column serves as a monthly report on the status of CAI’s efforts to initiate and support legislative and regulatory efforts that will improve the quality of life for the nearly 1.5 million residents living and working in New Jersey’s 6,700 common interest communities, and to oppose those efforts which would do them harm.


In the January / February 2021 issue of Assets, I reported on your Legislative Action Committee’s priority list of issues on which we planned to focus our efforts during this legislative session (January 2020 to January 2022) in Trenton. They included:


Passage of legislation to provide common interest communities immunity from COVID19 claims (to protect against uninsured claims arising from exposure to the novel coronavirus). Against all odds, and with the help of


20 November | December 2021


Adoption of a legislative correction of the Palisades statute of limitations ruling (which provides that this time frame runs from the date a construction defect is discovered, even if the developer/builder is in control of the Board at the time – S396/ A4903). With the sponsorship of powerful legislators in both legislative chambers, we hope for passage of this important bill before the end of this term.


Adoption of an amendment to the Municipal Land Use Law with regard to bonding of association improvements (currently not required of developer/builder if improvements are to be dedicated to the association). This is proving to be a more difficult legislative task to initiate than we anticipated, but we continue to pursue this important change in the law.


Monitor prospective legislation dealing with mandatory Board Member training and Manager Licensing. Those bills have now been introduced (A5492/S3790 and A5493/S3789), and we are negotiating the proposed statutory language with their sponsors in an effort to maintain the benefits of these initiatives for our members while at the same time minimizing the costs and


drawbacks of the current language.


Adoption of uniform common ownership interest legislation (the revival of UCIOA by the NJ Law Review Commission – S2261/A4265). We’re proud to report that this bill was nearly unanimously approved by the legislature, for the second time, and now sits on the Governor’s desk awaiting his signature.


Much has occurred since I wrote that column in January, including a gradual and welcomed lifting of the Governor’s State of Emergency in response to encouraging reports of increasing vaccinations and lessening infection rates, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID19. It was our hope then that if those encouraging trends continued, by January 1, 2022 when our immunity legislation is set to expire there would be no need for this immunity. Unfortunately, as I write this column those numbers are dangerously trending in the wrong direction here in New Jersey and around the nation.


We continue to monitor this worsening situation and are prepared to seek an extension of the NJ law that provided limited immunity to common interest communities from COVID-related claims if that becomes necessary. We will keep you posted. In the meantime, stay safe!


ABOUT THE AUTHOR George C. Greatrex Jr., a partner in the Cherry Hill, NJ office of Hill Wallack LLP, is a member of the firm’s Community Associations practice group. He is the current Chair of the CAI Legislative Action Committee – NJ, and is a frequent lecturer to board members, property managers and lawyers on the issues facing community associations in New Jersey. He can be reached via email at: ggreatrex@hillwallack.com.


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