New Laws & Forms Coming Your Way

Hello Members!

We are definitely in the throes of summer - hot, humid, daily thunderstorms  - and no college sports!  I have to be content with tennis, golf and soccer (oops - sorry - football).  As promised, I have included a summary of some of the bills coming out of this year's legislative session.  I have thrown in some information about the changes resulting from the NAR settlement.

Here goes.  Hope you enjoy.

Legislative update.  Attached is a summary of some of the new laws coming out of the 2024 legislative session.  It is not an exhaustive summary; I picked those that I thought might be of the most interest to you.  Here is a link to my summary:  https://www.thefund.com/TheFund/media/PDFs/2024-Legislative-Update.pdf  If you want to see the text of the new law, you can look up the session law at this link:  https://laws.flrules.org

We are also publishing summaries of these bills and more over the next several months in The Fund Concept, so keep an eye out for that additional opportunity.

I am already thinking about what I would like to accomplish in next year's session.  Would love to get a Foreign Interests in Real Property Glitch Bill adopted to make that new law easier to implement from your perspective.  I also think that some updating of the notary law (Chapter 117) is needed.  Higher penalties for participating in real estate fraud.  Higher bond requirements (sorry about the additional cost of this).  No journal!  And lots of folks are talking about "fixed fee recording" for documents in the official records.  Many of you have responded favorably to this idea, so maybe that can happen.

Changes in Florida Realtor Forms.  As a result of the settlement entered into by the National Association of Realtors, Florida Realtors has begun publishing revised/new forms for use in the industry.  Here is a great video pushed out by Florida Realtors that covers 4 of the new forms. More are being issued on July 9 so I'm sure I will have an update soon thereafter. https://youtu.be/reZSR-fYOss

That's all for this week. Let me know how we can help you.

Melissa Jay Murphy
Executive Vice President, Chief Legal Officer,
and General Counsel