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Florida’s Post-Surfside Reform Was Right. The Implementation Is Breaking Owners.

FL Real Estate Insider
By Luis Noronha

On June 24, 2021, at roughly 1:22 a.m., Champlain Towers South — a 12-story beachfront condominium in Surfside, Florida — partially collapsed. Ninety-eight people died.

The forensic record is now public. Long-term concrete degradation in the basement-level parking garage and pool deck, water penetration, corrosion of reinforcing steel. Structural concerns had been documented as far back as 2018 and described as “much worse” in April 2021. A roughly $15 million remediation program had been approved by the association before the collapse — but the main structural work hadn’t started.

Four years later, the legislative response to that night is reshaping Florida’s older condominium market in ways most owners are only beginning to feel. The reforms were necessary. The transition is painful. And it’s worth being honest about both.

What the law actually requires

Florida’s response came in two pieces of legislation: SB 4-D in 2022 and SB 154 in 2023, which together rewrote Chapter 718 of the Florida Statutes (the Condominium Act) on three fronts. The framework applies to residential condominium and cooperative buildings three stories or more in height.

1. Milestone Inspections. Every covered building must undergo a milestone structural inspection by December 31 of the year it reaches 30 years of age (measured from the certificate of occupancy), and every 10 years after that. Buildings that had already passed 30 years before July 1, 2022 were required to complete their initial inspection by December 31, 2024. Phase 1 is a visual structural inspection by a licensed architect or engineer; Phase 2 follows if Phase 1 identifies substantial structural deterioration.

2. Structural Integrity Reserve Studies (SIRS). Associations must commission a SIRS that identifies key structural and waterproofing components, estimates remaining useful life and replacement cost, and provides a funding schedule. Per the current statutory framework, the SIRS must be completed by December 31, 2026. An association required to perform a milestone inspection by that same date may complete the two simultaneously.

3. Mandatory reserve funding. This is the one with the largest financial impact. For budgets adopted on or after December 31, 2024, funding of SIRS reserves can no longer be waived or reduced by a unit-owner vote. Florida boards had legally been able to underfund or skip these reserves for decades, keeping monthly fees lower than the actual cost of building maintenance. That option is now closed for SIRS components. (A narrow temporary waiver of up to two years exists while repairs are actively being completed, requires a full membership vote, and cannot extend beyond 2028.)

The statutory home for all of this is § 718.112, Florida Statutes, with the milestone inspection framework primarily in § 553.899.

Why this hits older buildings hardest

The economic logic isn’t complicated. For decades, a meaningful number of Florida condo associations — particularly in older coastal buildings — adopted budgets that did not fully fund reserves for major structural components. Members voted year after year to waive or reduce them. That kept monthly fees artificially low and made it easier to sell units, but it deferred maintenance bills onto a future the association did not budget for.

The law has now ended that deferral. The bills are coming due in two forms simultaneously:

Higher recurring fees — because reserves now have to be fully funded going forward.
Special assessments — because the SIRS will, in many older buildings, identify substantial work that should have been funded years ago.

Specific dollar figures will vary enormously by building, age, location, structural condition, and prior reserve discipline. Anyone quoting you a single “average” number is guessing. What is documented is the direction: in buildings that deferred maintenance for decades, the catch-up is real, and it is being paid by current owners.

The unintended consequence (this is opinion)

I want to clearly mark what follows as my view, not statute.

A meaningful share of older Florida condo units — especially in coastal, lower-rise buildings — are owned by long-time residents who paid off their mortgages years or decades ago. These owners are often equity-rich and cash-poor: they own a home outright but live on fixed incomes, may not qualify for new financing against an aging structure, and don’t have the runway to wait out a multi-year capital program.

When the assessment letter arrives, some of them can absorb it. Many can’t. Those who can’t are facing a forced choice between a loan they can’t get, a HELOC the bank may not write, or a sale at whatever price the market will currently pay for a building that just publicly disclosed major structural work.

I’ll say plainly what I think is happening: a wealth transfer is taking place, from older long-tenured owners who deferred reserves under rules the state previously allowed, to cash buyers and entities equipped to underwrite the post-SIRS economics. I don’t think anyone designed this outcome. I think it is the predictable consequence of letting reserve waivers run for forty years and then ending them all at once.

The legislative response was right. The transition is being managed thinly. Both can be true.

What I’d tell different people right now

These are recommendations from a developer’s perspective. None of this is legal, financial, or tax advice — get qualified professionals before you act.

If you own in a covered building: Read the milestone inspection report and SIRS in full. Don’t accept a one-page summary. Push your board for the longest legally permissible timeline on capital projects and assessments. If you are considering selling, understand that disclosure obligations grow as reports are issued — selling earlier in the process is materially different from selling later. And get a real estate attorney before you sign anything, particularly if a buyer is offering a fast, all-cash close on a building that just received its SIRS.

If you serve on a board: The personal liability exposure for boards under the new framework is real. Document everything. Get the inspection and SIRS done by qualified, licensed professionals — not the cheapest bidder. Communicate openly with owners; the worst outcomes I’ve seen so far have come from boards that tried to soften the message and lost their owners’ trust in the process.

If you’re a buyer with cash: Older buildings are not all equal. A well-managed building that has already completed its milestone inspection and SIRS, has a credible capital plan, and has begun executing it is a fundamentally different asset than a building still in the disclosure pipeline. Underwrite the building, not the unit.

If you’re a legislator: The reform is sound. The transition deserves more attention. Bridge financing, deferred-payment programs tied to age and income, or property tax mechanisms that smooth the assessment burden over time would honor the safety intent of the law without disproportionately punishing the cohort least able to absorb the cost. We have time to do this. We are choosing not to.

What’s coming next

The reform is now in active execution. Initial milestone inspections for the oldest buildings were due by December 31, 2024. SIRS work has to be complete across covered buildings by December 31, 2026. The reserve funding rules apply to budgets adopted on or after December 31, 2024 — meaning fiscal year 2026 is the first full cycle in which most associations are operating under the new regime.

Translation: we are at the front of this story, not the back of it. More inspection reports, more reserve studies, more budget letters, and more assessment notices are coming over the next 18 to 24 months.

If you or someone you care about owns in an older Florida condo and your board is being vague about milestone or SIRS timing, that vagueness is the story. Get the documents. Read them carefully. Get advice from people who are paid to be on your side.

This newsletter exists to cover the parts of Florida real estate that get glossed over in the brokerage marketing emails. If this was useful, forward it to someone who needs to read it.

— Luis

P.S. If you’re trying to navigate a milestone inspection, a SIRS, or a special assessment and you’re not sure where to start, hit reply. I’m happy to point you to a qualified attorney, structural engineer, or broker. No pitch attached.

Tag: Building safety

The Condo Cliff: Florida’s Post-Surfside Reform Was Right. The Implementation Is Breaking Owners.