The statewide reckoning that followed the 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside revealed plenty of cracks in the infrastructure of Florida’s condos — and the regulations around them. The tragedy led to one of the most aggressive overhauls in condo safety policies in the country.
   

The law allows associations to take out lines of credit to fund reserves and pause contributions to those reserves for up to two years if they are already making needed repairs after mandatory building inspections.

While some lawmakers and experts have described the law as an attempt to walk the line between safety and affordability, its main effects will likely be to provide some flexibility and a short-term reprieve for condo owners while keeping intact the long-term enforcement of stricter inspection and maintenance standards.

“The new bill is just further tweaking the law and extending deadlines,” said Juan Farach, a partner at Shubin Law Group, a Miami firm that advises developers and condo boards. “The days of kicking the can down the road and waiving reserves are over. Now you’ve got to be responsible and maintain them well.”

What the first condo law required

The 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside killed 98 people and soon provoked debate and action from Florida legislators. The Champlain association’s three-year delay of repairs recommended by an engineering firm as condo owners fought over the escalating costs fueled that legislative attention.

Less than a year after the tragedy, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law an amendment to the Florida Condominium Act.

The law required condo associations to maintain financial reserves for covering future repairs and mandated more frequent inspections. Specifically, it required condo associations running buildings at least 30 years old — or 25 near the coast — and three stories or higher to complete a “milestone” safety inspection by Dec. 31, 2024. They were also required to complete a “structural integrity reserve study” once a decade to assess how much money would have to be set aside for future repairs to crucial elements like load-bearing walls, plumbing and roofing.

Following the safety law, condo associations scrambled to comply with the mandates, resulting in a spike in monthly maintenance fees and special assessments for unit owners. Condo associations not only had to worry about current maintenance issues, but also needed to build up larger financial reserves for any repairs that were likely to crop up in the future.

The sudden jump in costs caught many owners by surprise. Expenses ranged from the tens of thousands up into six figure sums, and South Florida’s older condo communities got hit especially hard.

Aging buildings that once offered a more affordable way to live in South Florida became money pits overnight.
Some condo owners, especially retirees on fixed incomes, couldn’t keep up with the deluge of bills and entered foreclosure or sold their properties at a loss. Data gathered by the Florida Realtors Association in the following years showed huge increases in the number of condos listed for sale, as well as a significant drop in sale prices. The condo market also sputtered, as prospective buyers began questioning what hidden costs might be lying in wait inside of older condo buildings.

And many condo associations also couldn’t keep up with the law’s changes, with half the buildings failing to meet initial inspection deadlines at the end of 2024.

Last February, Rep. Vicki Lopez, R-Miami, introduced a bill to reform the condo law. Lopez said her focus on the issue was driven by the 667 condo associations in her district, which covers coastal Miami neighborhoods like Coconut Grove as well as Key Biscayne and Dodge Island. The measure quickly gained bipartisan support, and merged with a similar bill in the Senate championed by Sen. Jennifer Bradley, R-Fleming Island

The new measure, which was approved in June and went into effect on July 1, builds upon the 2022 condo reform, clarifying rules, making some exceptions and increasing transparency. DeSantis signed it the day before the fourth anniversary of the Surfside tragedy.

Breaking down the new condo bill

Funding the reserves: Advocates of the new condo bill talked it up as a way to help address the affordability crisis and offer some financial relief. The law doesn’t provide direct financial help from the state to pay for the wave of new mandated repairs, but it does create options for some owners for how to fund repairs and manage reserves.

Condo associations can now build up mandated repair reserves by taking out lines of credit or loans. That could help in the short term, but associations and owners need to reckon with the true costs of their buildings and be prepared to invest in them, according to Ernesto Cuesta, president of the Brickell Homeowners Association, an advocacy group representing around 60 condo associations.

“Getting a bank loan for emergency repairs might help a condo association,” Cuesta said. “Loans are a tool, but you’ve got to be careful. It’s a double-edged sword.”

The revised law also allows associations to invest their reserves in certificates of deposit or deposit accounts at banks or credit unions.

Some rules were also tweaked to relieve building financial pressure. Through the end of 2028, condo associations that are already paying for urgently required repairs identified by the milestone inspection can pause or reduce contributions to the reserves for up to two years.

Rep. Lopez said they didn’t intend to touch any of the bill’s core safety requirements, but it was important to differentiate between urgent safety repairs and long-term planning.

“We said if you’re making the repairs, we will give you a pause on your reserve contributions,” she said. “It makes it more manageable. If an association has an immediate issue, we’re going to let them fix that first.”
There’s also one small, but noteworthy tweak to what the reserves can cover. In addition to being able to fund maintenance of various types of structural elements and safety systems — the foundation, load-bearing walls, fireproofing systems — the original Surfside bill said that any other item that had an expected deferred maintenance cost of $10,000 had to be covered as well.

The new bill increases that threshold to $25,000, and pegs it to inflation.

Structural integrity study and milestone inspections: The other major category of changes is to the mandated inspections and assessments — including extending a deadline that many condo associations couldn’t meet. The original deadline for many associations to complete their first structural integrity reserve study was the end of last year — a date many buildings had already blown past by February 2025, when the new bill was introduced. Now, that deadline has been extended until the end of 2025.

“There just weren’t enough engineers available to do these studies,” Farach, the lawyer, said. “This alleviates the pressure condos were under to try and comply.”

Then there are two changes with more staying power. The first exempts a category of buildings from the milestone inspections and reserve study requirements. The original law stated all buildings with three or more stories were required to conduct these comprehensive inspections and studies on a regular schedule. The revised law clarifies that only buildings with three or more “habitable” floors fall under that rule, exempting low-rise buildings with ground-floor commercial spaces or parking.

The bill also allows condos to delay the reserve study for two years after completing a milestone inspection, allowing them to prioritize the immediate repairs and maintenance first.

Transparency: The new condo law also establishes transparency rules for contractors and design professionals. Building inspectors cannot have a financial interest in the firm conducting the studies, and even indirect links like family members with a stake in the firm must be disclosed to the condo association. Additionally, professionals who bid on inspections must disclose if they intend to bid on the repair work that results from those inspections.

“Engineers and architects might have overinflated or overstated needed repairs — wanting to get in on the deal to fix them,” Lopez, the bill’s sponsor, said. “People had conflicts of interests. Transparency was needed.”

How the new law affects the condo crisis

While the law creates some room to breathe for many condo associations, the mandates remain. That means the condo affordability crisis remains, too.

Long-term, escalating expenses might have been deferred, but they haven’t been eliminated. Condo associations and owners are still staring down increasing costs for maintaining aging buildings and rising homeowner fees to fund reserves for repairs.

And there may be no way around that.

Lopez said that in the years after the Surfside tragedy, a hard truth forced itself into view: “Unfortunately living in a condominium isn’t as inexpensive as everyone thought.

“In the early years it can be, because a new building doesn’t require maintenance or repairs, but by the time you get to 12 to 15 years, you’ve absolutely got to start spending that money,” Lopez said. “It caught everyone by surprise — retirees and young families who had purchased a condo unit thought, ‘Well, my $250 monthly maintenance fee is very affordable!’ But that would never have been sufficient to maintain the building or ensure structural safety.”

Older condo buildings are looking at future repair costs that might be untenable for many owners, especially retirees living on fixed incomes who didn’t plan for a future spike in fees when they purchased their dream home in South Florida.

Condo associations may get some relief from temporarily pausing payments toward reserves or financing needed repairs with loans and credit — but condo boards could just be setting themselves up for even graver issues down the road when the bills inevitably come due.

The condo reform takes a stab at addressing a bevy of issues and complaints, but on the biggest questions facing condos, the new law simply stalls for time.

“These laws are necessary — they aren’t just protecting owners’ investments, they’re protecting their lives,” said Cuesta, whose group represents around 60 condo associations in Brickell. “Affordability is a different issue — it’s apples and oranges. Most condo associations are still in denial.”