Florida Condo Sellers: Three Documents, and a Threshold Worth Checking First
The reserve rules changed. So did the exemptions. Both matter to your sale price.
If you own a Florida condominium and you're selling in 2027, this is the item on the checklist with the biggest number attached to it.
How we got here
On June 24, 2021, Champlain Towers South collapsed in Surfside. Less than a year later, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 4-D, creating two parallel mandates: a recurring structural inspection program, and a financial requirement that the money exist when that inspection identifies work. The framework has been amended since — SB 154 in 2023, HB 1021 in 2024, and HB 913, effective July 2025.
The milestone inspection
Milestone inspections apply to condominium and cooperative buildings with three or more habitable stories. The inspection is required by December 31 of the year the building turns thirty, and every ten years after that. Local enforcement agencies have authority to require it earlier, as early as twenty-five years, based on factors like coastal proximity.
HB 913 clarified that "habitable" excludes parking levels, mechanical floors, and storage areas, which resolved a question a lot of boards had been arguing about.
The inspection runs in two phases. Phase 1 is a visual assessment. If it identifies substantial structural deterioration, Phase 2 involves testing to determine the extent. Under HB 913, required repairs must commence within 365 days of the local enforcement agency receiving the Phase 2 report.
The reserve study
Separately, associations must complete a Structural Integrity Reserve Study covering the building's major structural components. The compliance deadline for most associations was December 31, 2025, with an extension to December 31, 2026 available to associations coordinating the SIRS with an upcoming milestone inspection.
The part that hits owners: associations that had previously waived or reduced reserves are generally expected to begin funding required SIRS reserves as of January 1, 2026. For years, boards routinely voted to waive those contributions. For SIRS components, that option is gone.
HB 913 did add flexibility. Boards may now use loans, lines of credit, or special assessments to fund reserves with appropriate approval, and the bill created a limited pause option for certain reserve contributions tied to repairs identified in a milestone inspection. That flexibility changes the timing of the pain. It doesn't eliminate it.
The local nuance most people miss
Both the milestone inspection requirement and the SIRS requirement are tied to buildings of three or more habitable stories.
A great many condominium buildings in Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, and the surrounding western communities are two-story garden-style construction. Those buildings sit outside these thresholds.
If that describes your community, it is genuinely useful information — and it's also worth confirming rather than assuming, because the threshold is measured by habitable stories and building configuration, not by what the community looks like from the parking lot. Ask your association directly and get the answer in writing.
What a 2027 condo seller should have
Three documents, requested now:
The Structural Integrity Reserve Study, if the building is subject to one
The milestone inspection report, including Phase 2 if one was triggered
The association's current reserve funding plan, and any assessment schedule
If the building is exempt, get that in writing too. An exemption letter is a selling document in this market, because every condo buyer in Florida right now walks in assuming the worst.
Sellers who can produce documentation will transact. Sellers who say "I think we're fine" will watch buyers walk, because buyers have read the same headlines about assessments running into six figures and they are not inclined to find out the hard way.
Florence Lewis, Realtor® — Keller Williams Wellington
Comments
Post a Comment