Budget Conference: Condo Safety Compliance Gaps Are Back In Lawmakers’ Sights

By Jesse Scheckner

After multiple missed deadlines, House budget negotiators are asking for a detailed account of how many Florida condominium associations have complied with post-Surfside structural safety requirements.

A provision tucked into the House’s first offer in the ongoing budget Special Session would require the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) to submit a report by Dec. 1 detailing statewide compliance activity related to structural integrity reserve studies (SIRS).

The proposed language directs DBPR to identify, for Fiscal Year 2025-26, the number of condominium associations that have:

— Submitted a SIRS.

— Created an online account with the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes.

— Contacted the Division regarding failure to comply with SIRS reporting requirements under state law.

The report, which would come with no separate appropriation or preidentified fiscal impact, would go to the Chairs of the Senate Appropriations Committee, House Budget Committee and Governor’s Office of Policy and Budget.

The proposal, for which no Senate analog yet exists, comes nearly five years after the June 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside. The incident killed 98 people and prompted years of sweeping condo safety legislation in Florida.

Those reforms began in 2022 with SB 4D, which required milestone inspections and SIRS — meant to help condo associations identify future repair needs and properly fund reserves for major structural maintenance — for older buildings three stories or taller.

But compliance has proven uneven and politically contentious.

In mid-February 2025, DBPR Secretary Melanie Griffin told House lawmakers that most associations required to complete reserve studies by the then-applicable Dec. 31, 2024, deadline had not done so.

Of more than 11,270 condominium associations statewide to which the SIRS study requirement applied, she said, just 4,096 — about 36% — had self-reported compliance to the state at that time.

But that figure was likely inaccurate or incomplete. Griffin explained regulators were having a hard time verifying compliance because associations were only required to notify the Department that the study was completed, but not to provide the underlying documents.

That uncertainty appeared less of a focus during the 2025 Session than associated affordability issues, as condo owners across Florida grappled with soaring fees, special assessments and repair costs tied to the post-Surfside reforms.

A subsequent overhaul measure (HB 913) sponsored by Sen. Jennifer Bradley of Fleming Island and then-Rep. Vicki Lopez of Miami, who left the House in November for a seat on the Miami-Dade County Commission, extended the SIRS deadline by one year to Dec. 31, 2025, while creating additional financial flexibility for associations.

The legislation also authorized associations to obtain lines of credit for reserve obligations, permitted reserve funds to be invested in certificates of deposit and imposed new transparency requirements on condo boards, among other changes.

The House reporting proposal could provide the clearest statewide snapshot yet of how extensively associations are complying with the SIRS mandate and interacting with DBPR’s tracking system.

Meanwhile, the chamber’s broader DBPR budget offer also includes several operational adjustments affecting the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes, including shifting $759,264 in budget authority from contracted services and expense categories into salaries and benefits within the condo division.

The Senate’s budget, so far, does not include that same realignment.

Further, the House offer would eliminate a planned $739,331 competitive-pay adjustment meant to attract and retain Division staff, while the Senate prefers to preserve the funding.