TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – A House panel on Tuesday unanimously signed off on a proposal that would make further changes to condominium safety laws requiring inspections of older buildings and adequate reserves for repairs.
Rep. Vicki Lopez, a Miami Republican who has shepherded the House’s condominium safety efforts in recent years, said the measure “promotes integrity and long-term sustainability” as condo boards struggle to comply with laws passed after the 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers South building in Surfside that killed 98 people.
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Lopez’s bill (HB 931) would build on laws requiring “milestone inspections” of older buildings and “structural integrity reserve” studies to determine how much money should be set aside for future major repairs.
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Any “substantial structural deterioration” found by engineers or architects require more detailed inspections.
The initial law passed in 2022 and was tweaked in 2023, and the Legislature last year passed a measure that targeted wrongdoing by members of association boards.
Milestone inspections were supposed to be completed by Dec. 31 for certain older buildings that are three stories or higher. Some condo associations hit owners with large assessments in the race to comply with the deadline.
Part of the proposal approved Tuesday by the House Housing, Agriculture & Tourism Subcommittee would prohibit the state’s Citizens Property Insurance Corp. from issuing or renewing policies for condos or condo associations if the associations do not comply with the inspections requirements.
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“Look, they’ve had 2 1/2 years to get a structural integrity reserve study done. It literally doesn’t take that much, and yet we’ve only got, like, 35 percent of the condos in Florida that have complied with the law,” Lopez told reporters after Tuesday’s meeting. “So how else can I get them to actually just get the study done? I mean, I’m not even tying it to, you have to start reserving (money).”
Lopez said “the vast majority of condominiums” are covered by Citizens.
House Speaker Daniel Perez, R-Miami, called the Citizens restriction a “stick” intended to bring condo associations into compliance with the inspections.
“There are some associations that aren’t abiding by the law. I think that where Rep. Lopez is coming from is that this is more of the stick or the carrot. The Citizens portion is more of the stick. It’s more saying, ‘Hey, you have a law to abide by and you are not doing so,’” Perez said during an interview for The News Service of Florida’s “Deeper Dive with Dara Kam” podcast that will be released Sunday.
Another part of the House bill would allow boards of directors of condominium associations to levy special assessments or obtain loans to perform necessary maintenance required by the milestone inspections and structural integrity reports, without getting prior approval from the condo association members.
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Lopez said the provision “will provide some benefit” to boards that in the past have not been able to garner support from unit owners when seeking money to perform critical repairs.
“Quite frankly, sometimes these buildings, some of them are in very bad shape. They have not been maintained,” Lopez said. “So this bill says, look, if it’s about structural integrity, you don’t have to take the vote of the ownership. You just have to do it, because the board has a fiscal kind of responsibility and a fiduciary responsibility to comply with the law, and they have been put in a bad situation, or they can’t do it.”
In addition, the bill would allow condo boards to pause contributions to reserves without votes from members if the buildings are deemed uninhabitable.
Another part of the bill would allow boards to obtain lines of credit to meet reserve funding schedules recommended by structural integrity reports, which Lopez said “will give some financial benefit to the condo associations.”
Lawmakers say they have been swamped by complaints from condo residents about significant increases in assessments, which are in addition to homeowners association fees. At least some of the higher costs are related to the laws passed after the Surfside collapse. Condo associations also have been hit with higher property insurance costs.
Legislative leaders have argued that many condo buildings are in need of critical upgrades but that associations had inadequate reserves to cover repairs.
A Senate proposal, sponsored by Fleming Island Republican Jennifer Bradley, would require design professionals or contractors bidding on structural integrity reserve studies to disclose if they intend to bid on related maintenance or repair services.
The Senate version of the bill, among other things, would impose penalties on condo associations that fail to complete milestone inspections and structural integrity reserve studies by specific deadlines. The Senate version does not include the prohibition on Citizens coverage.
The disparities between the House and Senate approaches is “a good thing,” according to Perez.
“The Senate has a completely different version of the bill. That’s a good thing. I think the fact is that we are going to have a debate on it. We are going to have to have a compromise on it,” Perez said.