IDENTIFY

Finding the gap

Step 1 of three. Document the failure from primary sources and show precisely where law, regulation, oversight, or enforcement stops working — before proposing anything.

Most governance failure is not illegal. It is permitted — by a statute that never contemplated the situation, an agency with no jurisdiction, a duty nobody has standing to enforce, or a record nobody is required to keep. Naming which of those is operating is the difference between a complaint and a finding, and it decides what kind of fix could possibly work.

The four gaps worth distinguishing

They look identical to the person harmed and need completely different remedies, so TASFGA classifies before it proposes.

  1. No rule. The conduct is simply unregulated. A manager need hold no licence; an association need file with nobody. Remedy: legislation.
  2. A rule with no forum. The duty exists, but nobody has standing to enforce it, or the only forum is a civil action nobody can afford. Remedy: a standing provision, or an administrative path short of litigation.
  3. A forum with no capacity. The agency exists, has jurisdiction, and receives far more complaints than it can act on. Remedy: resourcing, or a narrower mandate honestly stated.
  4. Capacity with no record. Everything needed exists except the documentation that would let anyone see the pattern. Remedy: a registry, a retention rule, a disclosure standard.

Where the documenting is published

Instruments

The seven review practices

The questions TASFGA asks of a governed body, published in advance, each answerable from records a member or the public can already obtain.

 Research

The library

Papers, standards, and answers — including the 50-state licensure survey and the Focus 1 scoring rubric in full.

 Chronology

The record

Everything published to date, dated, in one place. Past tense only, and every entry opens.

 Field work

The Focus 1 issue catalogue

The in-field evidence base for residential community governance: documented failure modes, per building and per firm, published continuously.

What comes after

A documented gap is not the deliverable. Step 2 is writing the fix — model standards and bills, and the Governance Disclosure Pledge for bodies willing to move before a statute makes them. Step 3 is checking whether the fix took effect, which is the step almost nobody funds and the only one that settles anything.

Sitting on a documented failure? That is where nearly all of this originates — how to send it.