Honorable Robert Bunda

President of the Senate

Twenty-First State Legislature

Regular Session of 2002

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing, to which was referred S.B. No. 2470 entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of this measure is to require an association of apartment owners that has received a request for information from an owner, to notify the owner in writing of its intent to impose fees for providing that information prior to assessment and to allow contested fees to be submitted to arbitration.

Testimony in support of this measure was received from the Real Estate Commission, Hawaii Independent Condominium & Cooperative Owners, and seven individuals. The Community Associations Institute submitted comments.

Your Committee finds that under current law, an apartment owner may be charged for information requested, with no prior notice of the charge. Your Committee has heard from owners who received bills for hundreds of dollars for requested information, in some cases for information that the owner believed was readily available and of a simple nature.

Your Committee is supportive of the intent of this measure to provide a measure of certainty regarding the costs of such information, but believes the proposed language can be simplified.

Your Committee has amended this measure to:

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection and Housing that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 2470, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 2470, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.