Report calls for tougher condo rules on reserves, repairs and inspections
A Florida Bar task force formed after the Surfside condominium collapse wants state law changed to make it easier for condo buildings to raise fees on owners, toughen rules on maintenance reserves and create new regulations governing how a building plans for major long-term repairs.
The report released last week proposes making it easier to dissolve condominium associations when a building falls into disrepair, requiring updated maintenance plans every five years. The recommendations also included forcing condo associations to set up borrowing options if they choose to waive current requirements for maintaining cash reserves for repairs as structures age.
Additionally, it calls for statewide protocols on maintenance standards, and requirements on keeping reserve accounts segregated to cover various long-term repair needs — such as elevators and plumbing.
“We believe the vast majority of these buildings are well-managed and well-maintained and do not have the tragic elements that may — may — have led to the building collapse in Surfside,” William Sklar, a West Palm Beach condominium lawyer and chair of the Florida Bar task force, said at a hearing Thursday in Miami. “But it’s left to chance right now. Nobody knows. Because there is no maintenance or inspection standard.”
Sklar presented the report’s findings to a Miami-Dade County Commission subcommittee exploring post-Surfside reforms. The chair, Commissioner Raquel Regalado, has been presiding over hearings at which experts and advocates share their recommendations for what Florida and Miami-Dade should do to strengthen building safety, enhance regulation and improve condominium governance to prevent another catastrophe.
Regalado noted MiamiDade is already seeing regulatory consequences from the June 24 collapse, with building inspectors taking a more aggressive approach to buildings with severe maintenance needs.
Those are governed by the county’s Unsafe Structures Board, which can require a repair plan while residents remain in their homes if an inspector or private engineer doesn’t declare the structure too
unsafe for habitation.
“We’re seeing the pendulum swing,” she said. “As inspectors are being more conservative, the cities and county are being more proactive. Normally, what they would sent to Unsafe Structures, they’re now evacuating.”
Changes in state or local law remain mostly on the drawing board and in the legislative pipeline, with Miami-Dade and various private groups pursuing their own sets of proposed reforms.
The Florida Bar report is one of the first to propose rewrites of Florida law governing condos.
The report suggested:
Requiring more details from the maintenance plans Florida law currently mandates from condominium developers produce as unit owners prepare to take over management of new buildings. Along with more detailed instructions on keeping buildings maintained, condo associations would be required to hire architects or engineers to update the reports every five years. The requirements would apply to buildings at least three-stories tall.
Making it easier for unit owners to know about maintenance issues in their buildings, and to force boards to take action. That would include new rules requiring distributions of inspection reports to unit owners, and the right for owners to ask courts to intervene if board members aren’t responding to repairs called for by inspection reports.
Tightening Florida’s existing laws on maintenance
reserves, which currently can be waived by a vote of unit owners. Developers also have the right to waive reserve fees for the first two years of a building’s life, before owners take control. The Florida Bar task force recommended requiring a 75% vote by owners to waive reserves, but only to an amount that would still fund half of the required savings for long-term maintenance. The report recommends ending the developer waiver, and requiring condo boards to have detailed studies outlining estimated repair costs throughout a building’s life.
Making it easier for condo associations to impose assessments for needed repairs without votes by unit owners. “Boards of directors must be able to fund maintenance, repairs and replacements to the condominium property if the boards are to have the tools to fulfill their duties,” the report reads.