Since the start of last year, CAI-MN has been tracking a number of bills that were introduced in 2015. These bills and other that were introduced in 2016 had potential impacts on common interest communities and associations. While many did not go anywhere these past two years, we should expect to see some of them come back in 2017.

• SF 339/HF 1959 - Office of ombudsman for common interest communities' establishment. These bills were introduced during the 2015 Legislative session. They received no hearings in 2015 or 2016 in either body. After meeting with Sen. Hann the Senate bill author we were able to prevent the bill from moving forward these past years. It has been noted that Sen. Hann would like to work on this issue this summer/fall.

• HF 1142 Residential property rights defined (political campaign signs). The bill did not receive a hearing in the House the past two sessions and no companion bill has been introduced.

• SF 2566/HF 2988 - Ground lease payment partial inclusion in shareholder manufactured home park cooperatives homestead credit state refund application.  The bills became part of the omnibus tax bill.

• HF 3520/SF 3224 - Minnesota Common Interest Ownership Act amended to provide for construction defect claims. The bills did not received hearings in either the House of Senate.

• SF 2775/HF 3015 - Meeker county tax-forfeited land, rights of state as unit owner in common interest community. The language was passed as part of the Omnibus Lands bills.  The language looks to address voting rights of parcels that are currently owned by the state after bankruptcy by the developer.

Potential Summer/Fall Meetings

As indicated, there are number of pending issues next legislative session. Regardless of the outcome of the fall elections and who holds the majorities in the Senate and House, a few of these issues will be back in 2017. With a longer session (5 Months) there will be more time to give bills hearings and works issues out. With our two biggest pending issues being the Office of the Ombudsman bill and the Construction Warranty issue, we might want to think of creating two work groups where members of the LAC can be leads on the two issues. This will be good as induvial have expertise in certain areas and others might have conflicts on an issue.

In addition to these two issues, the Minnesota Realtors Association would like to tray and have a few meetings this summer to discuss the following issues as they have heard concerns from their members:

• Sellers and Associations that do not know whether their Association is subject to 515B (this is critical because if the Association is subject to 515B, the seller needs to provide the disclosure statement or resale disclosure certificate and there is a 10-day right of rescission)

• Document charges by Association Management Companies