More condo regulations get Senate committee nods

Image via AP.

Some aspects of state condo regulations have remained essentially unchanged for 60 years. But on Tuesday, the Senate Regulated Industries Committee passed two bills within a half-hour that would impose new rules on these entities that have been mainly left to self-regulation.

With all deliberate speed — and in the shadow of the Surfside condo disaster — SB 1702 and SPB 7042 won the unanimous approval of the committee. Mandatory requirements for inspections and maintenance of existing buildings would be added to the state code under these bills. Another inspection requirement was repealed in 2010, shortly after its 2008 enactment.

SB 1702 would require multifamily buildings taller than three stories to get inspected once they’ve been up for 30 years, then once every 10 years after that. Buildings within three miles of the coastline would be inspected at the 20-year-mark and every seven years after that.

The latter bill would require the same inspections at the same intervals and include three-story buildings. SPB 7042 goes further in its proposed regulations, adding rules about the information provided about condo association reserves, inspection reports, and funding associations’ reserve obligations.

“There are almost 1,600,000 condominiums in Florida, and of those, almost 106,000 are 50 years or older,” said Sen. Kathleen Passidomo. “This problem is going to increase.”

Analysis of SB 1702 found that the legislation would mean increased costs for apartments and condominium buildings. Broward and Miami-Dade counties currently require inspections at a multifamily building’s 40-year mark. These inspections typically cost as much as $20,000 to $40,000 for the inspection of a 15- to 20-story condominium, and between $2,000 and $4,000 for the inspection of a small commercial building. Any remedial work to address issues identified during the examination would add to that cost.

Sen. Darryl Rousson wanted to know whether there were enough building inspectors, licensed architects or authorized engineers to fulfill the demand for inspections this legislation would create.

Passidomo said the inspection industry is already gearing up to respond.

“We’ve got some of our great universities producing engineers and architects and I think this will get more people interested in the profession,” she said.

Whitney Dutton, owner of the Dutton Group at ReMax First in Fort Lauderdale, predicted that if these bills come into law, out-of-state owners who might not visit their condo regularly could see big increases in maintenance fees or significant, new looming assessments.

“It’s going to increase inventory for sure,” Dutton said. “A lot of these out-of-state owners who haven’t been to their condo in years, or don’t go regularly, might decide to sell and cash out. We could see a sizable sell-off in certain buildings.”

Neither bill has companion legislation in the House. It was the first stop for the bill that also included reserve funding requirements, and the second stop for the bill that focused primarily on inspections. The Senate Community Affairs Committee approved SB 1702 last week.

Travis Moore, a lobbyist for Community Associations Institute, said he was not sure there could be anything more critical this Session than this legislation.

“We need to make sure that what happened in June never happens again,” he said.