Looks like Cathy Dumond (kapohocat) has an auto reply thing going tonight. 

An even split has the advantage of avoiding the possibility that one owner feels that others have received favoritism

from my iPad

We  still need to focus on getting through the next ten days and then we can turn  our attention to next year.

The Hawaii legislative session is almost finished – IF A BILL ISNT COMPLETED BY THURSDAY THIS WEEK – ITS DIES! - so let’s work together to KILL THIS BILL!!  We could have a break until next January (well deserved) – just one more time we need you to write emails or phone!!

What we need is to ask you for one last email/phone response to divert a bill that could prove very problematic.  Please take a moment and write a short email as we outline below.  It is our goal is have the language on this bill SB2078 changed and then we can all relax for a few months knowing that we have diverted some laws that could have had terrible impact on our vacation rentals.  It should only take a few mintues....

SB 2078

The Hawaii state legislature will have a conference committee hearing on SB 2078 (link to current version: http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2012/Bills/HB2078_SD2_.HTM) 

The current version is problematic in that it requires:

•    The on-island contact, have a real estate liscense, if they handle more than one property.  For background, what happened was the Senate combined two bills, and by doing so, it created a situation where in the proposed bill, as it stands now, any on-island rep that handles MORE than one property needs to be a realtor.  WE DON’T WANT THIS.  We want the on-island contact to be able to be a handyman, a cleaner, anyone – we don’t want a restriction on what kind of professional they are.

•    Publication in all ads and on the website of on-island contact information and the Hawaii state excise tax registration number of the owner.   We are concerned by that including our personal information, our tax numbers, identify theft could occur.

RBOAA believes both of the above 2 points are not acceptable and better options are needed.  Please take a moment to email (or call) the following legislators and (in your own words) mention the following suggested points:

•    We oppose the current version of SB 2078 SD2 because it changes the law to now requires on-island agents to be licensed realtors, increasing costs to owners without benefitting renters.  House versions of SB 2078 did not alter the sections and the definitions in the law in a way that created this new requirement.  As to the licensing of on-island agents, the House version is better and we ask that they incorporate that language.

•    Requiring a Hawaii state excise tax number is fine, but requiring its publication in ads and on a website is problematic and we strongly recommend that a registration, not the tax number be made public for privacy purposes.

The good news is that House members have disagreed with this version of the bill and key Senate members have said that there was no intent to change the law pertaining to the "one to one" and licensing requirement.  However, legislators must finalize bills in conference committee by April 26 -- time is short and if the conferees agree to the current version of the bill it will have adverse impacts on rental owners.

Please send your email to  the following before Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. (Hawaii Time):

Senator Ron Kouchi  senkouchi@capitol.hawaii.gov

Senator Gil Kahele senkahele@capitol.hawaii.gov

Senator Roz Baker senbaker@capitol.hawaii.gov

Rep. Tom Brower repbrower@capitol.hawaii.gov

Rep. Jimmy Tokioka reptokioka@capitol.hawaii.gov

Rep. Bob Herkes repherkes@capitol.hawaii.gov

Rep. Scott Nishimoto repnishimoto@capitol.hawaii.gov

Rep. Clift Tsuji reptsuji@capitol.hawaii.gov

Rep. Corinne Ching repching@capitol.hawaii.gov

senkouchi@capitol.hawaii.gov;senkahele@capitol.hawaii.gov;senbaker@capitol.hawaii.gov;repbrower@capitol.hawaii.gov;reptokioka@capitol.hawaii.gov;repherkes@capitol.hawaii.gov;repnishimoto@capitol.hawaii.gov;reptsuji@capitol.hawaii.gov;repching@capitol.hawaii.gov

jwe wrote:

 

and the bill is based on a thesis not backed by facts:

 

"The legislature finds that although many owners of transient accommodations operate in compliance with applicable state and county laws, there are a sizeable number of owners who do not"

That's interesting: they've changed the argument from "TVR owner's don't pay taxes" to "we're not following state/county laws"... that might be considered a win for our position.  It might be argued that those breaking county zoning laws are probably mostly on-island already.  I've heard that some of the biggest illegal renting is being done by local PM's.  I don't have the evidence at hand... it would be nice to include that.

The flip-side argument is: now the locals fighting illegal rentals will take the state's side on these bills.

In talking to Senator Slom, who I think is on our side: he referred to us multiple times as "absentee landlords".  The spin put on these arguments is very important.  "Absentee landlord" has the connotation: doesn't care about the property, just here to extract money from the community. 

We need to spin this with an equally short label that better connotes what we do... like "Hawaiian retirement investors".

Please share your email exchange.  I assume you know how to copy it to your clipboard? Then do a REPLY on this chat, and then right click with mouse and press paste.  If that doesn't let you do it, then do to edit on your tool bar and press paste there.

Posted for X:

From:

Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 2:16 PM
To: 'Sen. Roz Baker'
Subject: RE: SB 2078

Ms. Baker,

First Mahalo for responding,

I am very aware of how the legislature works and I know that if this is what you people want this to pass you can bring it to the floor on the last minute of the last day and pass it.

As I understand it, the idea allegedly is to force owners who are not paying their taxes to do so. Why would anyone believe that putting restrictions on those of us who do pay our taxes is going to influence those who don’t anyway to start paying them? They will continue to break the law because you will not have any more tools to track them down then than you do now. They will even have more business because we who obey the laws will have to comply with whatever law you guys pass thereby increasing our operating costs. Some, if not all of us will have to go out of business, and that will force the tourists to the illegal operators. They make more money, you get less taxes, because we who obey the law are gone.

It just doesn’t make any sense, and I can’t understand why you would think it would, unless you have no concept of how the free enterprise system works, and can be fooled into believing that these restrictions would work. Or you have an agenda that we do not know about.

From: Sen. Roz Baker [mailto:senbaker@capitol.hawaii.gov]
Sent: Monday, April 23, 2012 12:54 AM
To:
Subject: RE: SB 2078

Mr.,

It is HB 2078 and it does not have a requirement for a realtor to manage the property.  Also the bill is not in its final form.  Mahalo for your e-mail.

Best regards, Roz Baker

Ladies and gentlemen of the Hawaii State legislature.

SB 2078

These laws are discriminatory against we who live off island, we have no vote you don’t represent us, and you think that by putting these real estate agents in charge of our properties that things will be better? First of all, most of us will go out of business. The real estate people are going broke because the market is so tough, so they will charge us “Off Islanders” lots to represent us. They don’t know our customers, they don’t handle our advertising, hell they can’t keep themselves in business. They will charge us a lot to keep up the payments on their BMWs and Mercedes’s.  We cannot afford more overhead. (That means the cost to operate our business). The bad guys who aren’t paying their taxes because they are running their business illegally anyway will get richer because they will continue to do the same thing. We who obey the law are going out of business are creating more business for them. You will receive less tax money than you are now.

I know you guys don’t “get it”. You’re not in business, someone has told you lies and you are eating it up. Dumb! This I will promise you. When I go out of business, I will take whatever profits I make on the sale of my property and I will take out advertisements and write letters to the editor of all the papers on all the islands to insure that the people who are no longer working because so many of us went out of business, so we won’t be using maids, and landscapers and contractors to update our property or fix broken appliances, I will take these adds out during all of October up to election day to tell anyone who will read what I say, who it was that passed these stupid bills and made them unemployed. Maybe you can get a job in the food service industry or some hotel. But you won’t get reelected if I have anything to say about it.

•    T

We oppose the current version of SB 2078 SD2 because it changes the law to now requires on-island agents to be licensed realtors, increasing costs to owners without benefitting renters.  House versions of SB 2078 did not alter the sections and the definitions in the law in a way that created this new requirement.  As to the licensing of on-island agents, the House version is better and we ask that they incorporate that language.

•    R  Requiring a Hawaii state excise tax number is fine, but requiring its publication in ads and on a website is problematic and we strongly recommend that a registration, not the tax number be made public for privacy purposes.