Fund News and Alerts

Effective July 1, 2021, the Florida Legislature passed the Community Property Trust Act as Ch. 736, Part XV, F.S., (the Act). Prior to the Act, Florida was a pure “common law property” state, meaning that the way title was held determined who owned the property. In community property states, “community property” means that the assets acquired during the marriage are owned by each spouse equally, regardless of how title is held. The Community Property Trust Act gives people the option of holding assets in Florida as “community property” by transferring them to a community property trust.

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We know you are essential to the closing process, and to help real estate professionals and consumers gain the same understanding, we have launched a statewide “Value of a Real Estate Attorney” awareness campaign. The campaign will be promoted on the below channels. 

• Florida Realtor Legal News
• Title Report Ads
• Paid Search ads - internet online searches
• Social Media
• Outdoor Billboards - Orlando, Miami, Tampa
• Realtor Association Magazines - Orlando, Miami, Tampa

Fund commitments contain a standard exception for any lien provided by county ordinance or by Ch. 159, F. S. More specifically, the exception excepts from coverage, “Any lien provided by County Ordinance or by Chapter 159, F.S., in favor of any city, town, village or port authority, for unpaid service charges for services by any water systems, sewer systems or gas systems serving the land described herein; and any lien for waste fees in favor of any county or municipality” (the Exception). Of particular note, this Exception not only relates to Ch. 159 municipal liens, but also liens created by county ordinance. The goal of this article is to explore why the Exception is included on Fund commitments, and how to delete it. Read the article

Becoming a leader of a Real Estate Council can be filled with challenges but there is a way to make it a lot easier.  Get your copy of the Florida ARECS Leadership Guide!  This handy reference outlines important topics like governance, taxes and leadership structure.  It offers samples of documents including By-laws, Membership Drive Letter, and a New Member Welcome Letter.  The Leadership Guide provides suggestions for programming and can connect you to other REC leaders from across the state so you can reach out to others who know what it’s like to lead a REC.  

We often focus on all the great events and networking opportunities offered by the RECS, but there are other benefits, and one of the most significant is the Florida ARECS Resource Center.  The Resource Center is located at https://www.flarecs.com/resources/resource-center  and is full of valuable tools including:

One of Florida ARECS’ most important strategic priorities is to promote the value of using a real estate attorney in real estate transactions to Realtors®. Since our inception in 2014 we have supported dozens of events to fulfill this objective including:

Florida ARECS and The Fund are always ready to support our Real Estate Councils and their efforts to build relationships with their local Realtor® Associations.

We would also like to take this opportunity to recognize REC member attorneys who have been appointed to the Florida Realtor®-Attorney Joint Committee. The Florida Realtor®-Attorney Joint Committee was formed in the early 1970's by the Joint Accord entered into between The Florida Bar and the Florida Association of Realtors®, to fulfill several purposes:

Late last year The Fund took another step in its support of Florida ARECS by launching an advertising campaign in the Florida Realtors’ Legal News, a bi-weekly email newsletter that reaches over 105,000 Florida Realtor® members. 

Florida ARECS continues to work with Florida Realtors^® to build awareness of the RECs and the value their attorney members bring to real estate transactions. So we are pleased to offer two new opportunities for REC member attorneys to promote themselves and their RECs.