2025 – THE BEGINNING OF MASSIVE CHANGES TO OUR CONDO COMMUNITIES

There are certain years that are more defining than others.  Certain years that stand out.  Well, if you live in a Florida condominium, 2025 will be that year.  To understand why, we have to pay respect to another year that stands out more than any other ever will, and that is 2021, the year the Champlain Towers collapsed in Surfside, Florida killing 98 innocent men, women and children.

As a result of 2021, and The Florida Legislature’s promise to Floridians that another Surfside will never happen again, massive legislation was passed requiring mandatory inspections, mandatory repairs, mandatory education for Board members and perhaps the most important and controversial new law, the requirement to fund reserves for your condominium that is 3 stories or taller, based upon a Structural Integrity Reserve Study that needed to be prepared by an architect, engineer or someone with CAI credentials and  completed by December 31st, 2024.

If you didn’t do it yet ----- you’re late and in violation of Florida law.

Think about this…….any condominium budget you will ever pass again must include mandatory reserves based upon the results of that structural integrity reserve study.  Here’s the new law:

For a budget adopted on or after December 31, 2024, the members of a unit-owner-controlled association that must obtain a structural integrity reserve study may not determine to provide no reserves or less reserves than required by Your Structural Integrity Reserve Study. 

Here’s what a structural integrity reserve study is and how often it must be performed:

(g) Structural integrity reserve study.—

1. A residential condominium association must have a structural integrity reserve study completed at least every 10 years after the condominium’s creation for each building on the condominium property that is three stories or higher in height, as determined by the Florida Building Code, which includes, at a minimum, a study of the following items as related to the structural integrity and safety of the building:

a. Roof.

b. Structure, including load-bearing walls and other

      primary structural members and primary structural

      systems as those terms are defined in s. 627.706.

c. Fireproofing and fire protection systems.

d. Plumbing.

e. Electrical systems.

f.  Waterproofing and exterior painting.

g. Windows and exterior doors.

h.  Any other item that has a deferred maintenance

     expense or replacement cost that exceeds $10,000

     and the failure to replace or maintain such item

     negatively affects the above items as determined

     by the visual inspection portion of the structural

     integrity reserve study.

Yes – for those condo associations that have ignored funding reserves for years or decades --- your bill has come due.  And it’s going to be expensive.  For those of you who thought it was a bad idea to put away money for a rainy day because you might not be alive at that time ---- I guess the bad news is -----YOU LIVED!