blackburied wrote:

 

aurorasands wrote:

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Hawaii landlord law defines who can be an owner's agent. Only a licensed realtor can serve more than one owner. This law existed when we bought our condo in 2009. The current legislation doesn't change that.

I do not beleive that's correct. 

Note that I'm saying that the landlord-tenant law doesn't define who can be an owners agent.

You are correct that only a licensed realtor can serve more than one owner.

aurorasands wrote:

 

Hmm. Our AOAO requires that we have an on-island contact and I believe they refer to HRS 467 as the guiding rules. I will check further. Is there an attorney on board who can verify what the current requirements are as to who may serve as an on-island contact?

IANAL, but you can read 467-2 for yourself... it's fairly clear:

§467-2  Exceptions.  The provisions requiring licensing  as a real estate broker or

salesperson shall not apply:

(1) To any individual who,  as owner of any real estate or acting under power of

attorney from the owner, performs any of the acts enumerated in the definitions of

real estate broker and real estate salesperson with reference  to the real estate;

provided that the term "owner" as used in this paragraph shall not include any

individual engaged in the business of real estate development or brokerage or

include an individual who acquires any interest in any real estate for the purpose 

or as a means of evading the licensing requirements of this chapter; and provided 4

further that the term individual "acting under power of attorney"  as used in this

paragraph shall not include  any individual engaged in the business of real estate

development or brokerage or any individual who acts under a power of attorney 

for the purpose or as a means of evading  the licensing requirements of this 

chapter;

...

It goes on to exempt a "caretaker" too (and caretaker" is defined up-front to be 1:1).

We are currently exempt, as owners, from requiring a licensed agent to manage our property... although the PM's will side-track you and say things like "the exemption requires a caretaker".

And, as shown previously, the on-island contact is in HRS 521... and, as explained above, refers to an "agent", but that law does not define "agent" to be "licensed real estate agent", but again, PM's will argue otherwise.

In searching 467, I can't find any instances of "on/off-island" (nothing about "island" at all) nor "without the state" (seven occurrences of "without", non pertaining to remote owners).  The "on-island contact to be given to all guests" is only in the landlord-tenant law, HRS 521-43(f).

I did search all Hawaiian law for the use of "agent"... there are 1040 (ominous number!) instances of "agent", and very few have anything to do with "licensed real estate agent".

To search all the laws for any given string, Google for: "agent" site:www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/ ... where "agent" is the string you're searching for.  Most of the "without the state" matches are part of the term "within or without the state"... HRS 567 is one of the very few laws that doesn't include the "within or" part.

In resposnce to sjsf.....as I have posted previously.

There is significant problem with illegal vacation rentals in residential neighborhoods (not zoned for vacation rentals). This problem has been exasperated by the real estate collapse. Many residential homes in foreclosure (or behind on payments) are being illegally rented to vacationers as a stop-gap measure to produce income. As you can imagine the neighbors are very unhappy. The homes are falling into disrepair and being illegally rented to tourists, disturbing their neighborhood, and violating zoning laws.

These citizens are rightfully angry and want something done. They will support any measure that appears to address this issue.

The problem is that these bills lump illegal vacation rentals in the same group as law abiding, tax paying owners of condos in hotel zones.

It is our job to let the Hawaiian people know we agree with their complaints against illegal rentals, and support paying our GE and TA taxes, but that the current set of bills will have severe negative economic consequences on the State’s Tourism and Real Estate market.

The legislator has done a good job of muddying the water on these issues. They are effectively spraying machine gun fire into a crowd of law abiding citizens in a misguided attempt to hit a few bad guys.

The majority of voters in Hawaii will only take note when they think it will effect their pocketbooks.

message just received from RBOAA....

Aloha,

HB2078 and SB2947 have both been received back to originating houses and they have both been disagreed with.  Which means that they will go to Conference.

Conference committees will be set up with Chairs and committee members from each house.  They will meet and try to make the bills satisfy both houses if they cannot agree the bills will die.  If they do agree they will go to the governor.

So you ask where does that put us?  We have no idea what the bills may end up looking like.  From now on it is a closed door negotiation and we must continue to try and educate the legislation that the contents in these bills are not appropriate for all the various reasons we have stated before.

Alicia will be traveling to Hawaii on behalf of all of us next week and will meet with as many Senators and Representatives as she can.  She will also be meeting the Small Business Regulatory Review Board and seek their assistance.

We will continue to our efforts with phone calls, emails and faxes.  We will update you with further details next week and we may need you to take quick action once again.

If any of you are on the islands or plan on being there in the next couple weeks, please try and meet face to face with the legislators.

Fight On!

Team RBOAA

who says rboaa supports anything illegal?  You seem to be coming to conclusions not supported by any facts and that is not helpful at all.

from my iPad

I agree with alohaes that it's important to focus on the specific issues. But jwe is also right. We need to specifically address the political issue.

In particular,  the politicians who will make these decisions in the next week need to be reminded that the Unions and the Property Managers are not their only constituents.  If these bills pass in their current form, they will have a severe negative impact on tourism and depress property values. That affects everyone on the islands. And when that message gets out - along with the fact that some politicans decided to trade the interests of the many for a favored few  - it's not going to help them in their re-election campaigns.

i agree.  We just need to make certain  that we do not loose sight of what their real goals are

jwe wrote:

 

who says rboaa supports anything illegal?  You seem to be coming to conclusions not supported by any facts and that is not helpful at all.

I can see where a previously made statement was misconstrued as RBOAA supports illegal vacation rentals (or, at least supports legislation to ease restrictions and make some currently illegal rentals legal).  I can't find that post today, so it must have been deleted, or I was misinterpreting.

I think it is very wise to have the HVROA focus on "easing current restrictions" on its own, while the RBOAA focuses on "losing our right to manage our own property", and safe and secure methods of informing guests of local contacts, and ways for DoTax to more readily/effectively catch tax cheats without excessive regulatory burden.  By keeping these foci separate, RBOAA membership can rest easy that they are not supporting anything currently illegal, and be able to differentiate itself when locals complain that we're supporting illegal rentals.

Of course, if these bills are passed, then the RBOAA will find itself supporting "easing of current laws" requiring PM's, etc..., and could then be construed as supporting what will then be illegal activity.