(The Center Square) – Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into law on Monday a pair of bills designed to help assist Florida condominium owners with crippling assessments stemming from laws passed in 2022 in the wake of the 2021 Surfside building collapse.
House Bill 913 is a 191-page bill that addresses a lot of issues, including a prohibition of conflict of interests with community association managers and structural inspectors, along with requirements on milestone safety inspections for buildings with three habitable stories or greater (the previous law was three stories).
DeSantis said he wanted lawmakers to take up condo reform in the special session earlier this year that he called for immigration. Legislative leaders gaveled out of the DeSantis special session and into one they called that focused solely on immigration enforcement.
“I called a special session in January of this year, immigration was a big one, and we’ve had huge success with that,” DeSantis said. “But we also called it for the condos, because I thought if we could start the year off with the condo reform, one that give people peace of mind to know there’s relief there, could also set different expectations and then all these assessments could be done differently, and these reforms would really make a difference. That was not taken up. And I know a lot of people were very disappointed in the leadership, particularly in the House of Representatives, for not being willing to address it at that time.”
He also said reforms enacted in a May 2022 special session in the wake of the 2021 collapse of the Champlain Towers condominium building in Surfside that killed 98 people were well-intentioned. He also said many of these structural repair assessments required by the post-Surfside reforms that condo owners had to pay could force some of them to have to sell their units and try to find a new home in an overheated housing market.
Communities would also be required under HB913 to have adequate property insurance for full insurable value as determined by an independent insurance appraisal or an update of a previous appraisal.
Condo associations would be required to propose a substitute budget that excludes any discretionary spending if the proposed budget exceeds 115% of the assessments of the previous year. This new budget would have to be presented to property owners before it could be adopted.
The measure would also remove “assessments for the betterment of the community” as part of that 115% cap and limit those added expenses to repairs required by structural integrity reserve studies.
“It’ll increase transparency and accountability on condominium associations, and it’ll provide needed financial relief for condo owners,” DeSantis said about HB913.
He also signed into law HB393, which forbids a condo association from applying for an inspection or grant under the My Safe Florid Condominium Pilot Program unless the it has complied with milestone inspection requirements and structural integrity reserve requirements. Condo associations will also have to match a dollar in association funds for every $2 in grant funding, which can be used for roof improvements and other weather-mitigation measures designed to harden condo buildings against storm damage.
