New Stiffer State Mandates for Condo Associations

 

Florida Bill 154:

New State Requirements/Mandates

Impacting

Century Village's 309 Condo Associations

(Note: Although the bill presently applies to buildings of three+ stories, (a) predictions are that its requirements will be extended to all condo structures; (b) insurance companies want these requirements met)

• The Bill

  (1) states that all owners of a mixed-ownership building in which portions of the building are subject to the condominium or cooperative form of ownership are responsible for ensuring compliance and must share the costs of the inspection;

  (2) orders that a building that reaches 30 years of age before December 31, 2024, to have a milestone inspection before December 31, 2024;

  (3) authorizes the local enforcement agencies that are responsible with enforcing the milestone inspection requirements the option to set a 25-year inspection requirement if justified by local environmental conditions

  (4) authorizes the local enforcement agency to extend the inspection deadline for a building upon a petition showing good cause that the owner or owners of the building have entered into a contract with an architect or engineer to perform the milestone inspection and it cannot reasonably be completed before the deadline;

  (5) permits local enforcement agencies to accept an inspection and report that was completed before July 1, 2022, if the inspection and report substantially comply with the milestone requirements; however, associations must still comply with the unit owner notice requirements, and if a local enforcement agency accepts a previous inspection as a milestone inspection, the deadline for a subsequent 10-year re-inspection is based on the date of a previous inspection;

  (6) provides that the inspection services may be conducted by a team of design professionals with an architect or engineer acting as a registered design professional in responsible charge;

  (7) states that the condominium or cooperative association is responsible for all costs associated with the inspection attributable to the portions of the building for which it is responsible under the governing documents of the association;

  (8) requires associations to give unit owners notice about the inspection deadlines, electronically or by posting on the association’s website, within 14 days after they receive the initial milestone inspection notice from local enforcement agency;

  (9) require the milestone inspector to submit a phase two progress report to the local enforcement agency within 180 days of submitting the phase one inspection report; and

  (10) clarifies that an association must distribute a copy of the summary of the inspection reports to unit owners within 45 days of its receipt.(11)requires associations to base a budget adopted on or after January 1, 2025, on the findings and recommendations of the association’s most recent SIRS;

(12) requires reserves for the SIRS items for which the association is responsible under the condominium declaration;

(13) clarifies that reserves for replacement costs do not need to be maintained for any item with an estimated remaining useful life of greater than 25 years, but the SIRS study may recommend a deferred maintenance expense amount for such item;

(14) states that the SIRS recommendation must include a reserve funding schedule;

(15) allows associations complete the SIRS simultaneously with the milestone inspection, but the associations must complete the SIRS by December 31, 2026; and

(16) permits associations to satisfy the SIRS requirement with a previous milestone inspection, or an inspection performed for a similar local requirement, if the inspection had been performed within the previous five years. (17) And, finally, effective July 1, 2027, the bill permits condominium owners to use the mediation process in this section for specified disputes related to compliance with the milestone inspection or SIRS requirements.

Richard Handelsman.

Excerpted from https://www.flsenate.gov/Committees/billsummaries/2023/html/3187. Or simply google Florida SB154 for more details)