No. CS/CS/CS/HB 1221
Filed under Insurance.
Department of Financial Services; Revises provisions related to DFS including financial subsystems, warrants, firefighter employment, , My Safe Florida Home & Condominium Programs, payments, coordinating council, licensing & examination, fire safety, fire codes, licensee requirements, deferred payment processors, public adjusters, bail bonds, abandoned & unclaimed property, & legal tender.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDBuyers who purchase a Floridian's claim to state-held unclaimed property must now pay at least 70 percent of its value. The agreement must be notarized, and the seller gets 15 business days to cancel it.
A new disqualification law permanently bars anyone convicted of a first-degree felony, sexual battery, child abuse, elder abuse, or another felony involving moral turpitude from a funeral, cemetery, or preneed sales license. Lesser felonies carry a 10-year bar.
Condominium associations can only get My Safe Florida hurricane-mitigation grants if at least 80 percent of occupied units are held by households at or below 80 percent of the area median income, on top of the existing three-story rule.
Public officials may now hire, promote, or advance a relative into a firefighter job if a competitive process set out in a union contract governs the hire, a new exception to Florida's anti-nepotism law.
AIA new statute regulating cash buyouts of a Floridian's unclaimed property requires the purchase price to equal at least 70 percent of the property's value, a notarized written agreement in at least 12-point type, and a 15-business-day right for the seller to cancel without penalty.
AIBefore Florida can take custody of unclaimed property worth more than $1,000, the holder must send a second notice by certified mail with return receipt requested, on top of the standard first-class mail notice, at least 60 days before filing the report.
AIA new statute permanently bars anyone convicted of a first-degree felony, a felony involving moral turpitude, or a felony under the chapters covering sexual battery, prostitution, lewdness, or abuse of children or the elderly from ever being licensed under chapter 497, which covers funeral directing, embalming, and cemetery operations.
AICondominium associations can now join the My Safe Florida Condominium pilot program only if at least 80 percent of occupied units are owned or rented by people or families at or below 80 percent of the area median income, on top of the existing rule that the building be 3 or more stories.
AIThe anti-nepotism law now lets a public official appoint, employ, promote, or advance a relative as a firefighter, so long as the hire happens through a competitive process spelled out in a collective bargaining agreement.
AIThe presumption that stock, dividends, and business debt are abandoned now takes 5 years of no contact instead of 3, and equity or brokerage accounts are not presumed abandoned at all if the holder can show it still knows how to reach the owner.
AIAttorneys, CPAs, and investigators registered to file unclaimed-property claims for a fee must file and get paid on at least 10 claims per calendar year or lose their registration for a year, and new applicants must disclose past felony convictions involving dishonesty or breach of fiduciary duty.
AIA single-family or two-family dwelling used as a small group home for people with mental health disorders, run by a 501(c)(3) charity, or as permitted migrant farmworker housing is no longer reclassified into a different occupancy category under the building or fire code solely because of that use.