January 25th, 2022 6:22 PM by Linda Holley
On Thursday, June 24, 2021, at approximately 1:22 a.m. EDT, Champlain Towers South, a 12-story beachfront condominium in the Miami suburb of Surfside, Florida, partially collapsed. Ninety-eight people died.
Today I attended a webinar hosted by a Sarasota law firm. Florida House Bill 1393 will be effective July 1, 2022. Today it is in the Regulatory Reform Subcommittee. This bill covers waiving or reducing the amount of money in the condo reserve funds; requirements for reserve fund studies; annual structural inspections of buildings, structural and electrical recertification inspections, and penalties for non-compliance. Mandatory evacuations will also be included.
How will this affect condo resales? Certain documents must be delivered to prospective buyers or lessees, and the Florida residential contract will be revised. Again. (It is revised almost every year.) Buildings must confirm with Florida Building Codes, and there will be waterproofing measures of certain elements of community associations in accordance with the Florida Building Codes.
My story: In 2018, I bought a small condo in an over-55 community in central Sarasota for $130,000. Our first reserve study was done by a very smart new Board of Directors in 2019. Most homeowners were shocked at the results of this study and projected costs coming up the next 10 years to keep this 50-year old property in like-new condition. Homeowners meetings were knockdowns and drag-outs because a reserve study had never been done here and most of the residents did not understand it. "You brought in an OUTSIDER to look at our property?" "How dare you imply that previous Boards of Directors were not doing our jobs!" "We've always been fully funded." "There's enough money for the roofs, painting, and repaving, that's all we need!" "We're not voting for an increase in our dues." "You don't know what you're doing!" The air was polluted with words that are shameful to Presbyterians. So this brilliant group of professionals, those SOB Board members that hired a professional to do our reserve study, resigned at the annual meeting, one by one, and all walked out together. So there! But they are greatly missed because the things in the reserve study are coming to fruition: electrical, plumbing, pool pump, clubhouse AC, and termites, too!
But in Florida....change is on the way now! A licensed engineer may be required to do an inspection on condominiums every 2 years, and this will be the basis for the annual budget. There will also be a separate reserve fund for life/safety items such as electrical and structural. It's a shame that 98 people lost their lives to prove that condominium communities must be mindful of the health and safety of owners and future buyers.
Are YOU thinking about relocating to Florida and buying a condominium? Find out when the last reserve study was done and if the budget is fully funded or partially funded. If it's partially funded, there is a possibility that owners may be surprised with a special assessment in the event the budget is inadequate to fund maintenance and repairs required.
Here to help you with your Sarasota and Venice, Florida, real estate needs. Please call me if I can answer any questions for you about real estate in Florida.
Most sincerely yours,
Linda Holley, Realtor, GRI, SRES, phone 941-914-4914
p.s. Although I have not blogged for months, nearly 12,000 people have read my blog history over the past 30 days. THANK YOU!
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