Most of you are not political enthusiasts and who would blame you with all that is going on in Washington, DC these days. But in our industry our focus and yours should be on what Florida’s 160 citizen Legislators are up to when they meet in Tallahassee this January.
Florida’s 2022 Legislative 60-day Session starts January 11. FADA is tracking over 20 new bills that have been filed and await action during the regular Session. This year FADA will not run any franchise legislation as we await an appeals court ruling on whether FADA should be able to bring alleged violations of the franchise law to the DMV for their enforcement action.
What to expect this Session:
- The return of a privacy data bill that will cost dealers thousands of dollars in order to comply
- New vendors want to take over specialty license tags and introduce digital license plates
- DMV wants to create a new definition for a control person within each license in an effort to keep people who have previous felonies from re-entering the business and working behind the scenes
- Some new concepts for sales of F&I products in Florida
- Problems with staffing in several county offices of DMV/tax collectors resulting in titling and registration delays and the need to issue more than two temp tags
- Electric vehicle legislation involving charging stations and infrastructure demands
Sarasota and Stuart are experiencing problems with offices at DMV or tax collectors not being open and properly staffed to handle dealer demand. The result is dealers being late completing their applications for titles or a general shutdown that forces the issuance of more than two temp tags to customers. FADA is seeking non-legislative solutions from DMV but failing that we may need legislation until we can get these offices around the state back to full capacity. We will update members in future e-news.