Gov. Ron DeSantis has pledged to provide relief before the end of the year to condo unit owners facing increased costs for required structural safety inspections and plans to fund reserves for upcoming repairs.

But leading members of the House and Senate aren’t endorsing a special session to enact changes, so the Dec. 31 deadline for compliance remains in effect statewide for condo buildings over two stories that turned 30 years old before July 1, 2022.

Condo associations are required to submit what’s called a Milestone Inspection report that determines whether buildings show signs of substantial structural deterioration. They must also obtain a separate report, called a Strategic Integrity Reserve Study. It estimates the remaining lifespans of such components as roofs, structural elements, fire protection systems, plumbing, electrical systems, exterior painting and waterproofing and windows, and determines how much money associations must fund for future repairs or replacements.

Spokespersons for South Florida counties and cities say required inspection reports have been trickling in, and so far none have revealed safety issues that could force owners to evacuate their units.

Prior to enactment of the statewide law, Broward and Miami-Dade counties required inspections once buildings turned 40 years old and every 10 years afterward. The state law requires inspections after a building turns 30, but gives local jurisdictions authority to require them for buildings that turn 25 and are located within three miles of the ocean.

Broward County enacted an even tougher program that requires inspections of all qualifying buildings after they turn 25, but deemed structures inspected under the 40-year rule as recertified until their 10-year follow-up is required.

The changes pushed up the inspection deadline for hundreds of buildings in the two counties.

Pompano Beach identified 73 buildings with the pending deadline, and five have completed inspections and obtained certification that they are safe for continued use, a spokeswoman said.

Hollywood did not provide the number of buildings requiring inspection in its city, but said 78 have submitted proof that the inspections were completed. “The majority require some degree of repair,” a spokeswoman said. Hallandale Beach said 28 buildings require inspections by the deadline and eight have completed them.

Of 117 buildings in Deerfield Beach required to undergo an inspection, none has submitted a report, according to information provided to the South Florida Sun Sentinel.  A city spokesman pointed out that condo associations that own those buildings only received notification of the requirement in July or August.

In Fort Lauderdale, inspections have been completed at seven buildings out of 37 residential condo buildings that are required to meet the Dec. 31 deadline, a city spokeswoman said.

Miami-Dade County’s program requires all buildings that are more than 2,000 square feet and occupied by more than 10 people to provide proof of inspection. Of 2,147 eligible structures in the unincorporated parts of the county, 60 have been recertified and the rest might be in various stages of the process, a spokeswoman said.

A West Palm Beach spokeswoman said 51 associations were required to undergo inspections. Of them, 12 reports have been submitted, the spokeswoman said. Boca Raton created its own program in 2021. Its deadlines are different.

‘We’ve been extremely blessed’

Mike Santiago, who oversees inspections for the firm Universal Engineering Sciences, says his company has completed more than 350 inspections across the state while another 100 to 150 are under way or under contract. Only 5% of initial inspections by the company turned up signs of structural deterioration that prompted more detailed examinations, he said.

Just one inspection revealed flaws that required immediate repair, he said. The steel support columns in one beachside building were severely corroded because of water intrusion, he said.

“We’ve been extremely blessed,” Santiago told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “We haven’t seen a lot of buildings that have had a lot of issues.”

Elderly residents of older condo buildings, meanwhile, are on edge about what they see as an approaching tidal wave of cost increases.

Increased costs for condo association insurance have already driven up monthly assessments, said Wendell Ensey, president of Century Village in Pembroke Pines.

“Since 2020 to now, the unit owners in my association have seen fees go up $120 to $150 a month,” Ensey said. “And people who are on fixed incomes — there could be a single lady sitting there drawing $1,200 a month in Social Security and all of a sudden she’s paying $700 a month or $800 a month in maintenance fees. She’s having a hard time eating.”

Dennis Warren, who says he owns several dozen condo units he rents in the Orlando area, says the inspections alone are costing associations tens of thousands of dollars. One condo association where he owns units is paying $60,000 for its study, he said, saying the effort to protect condo owners “is actually counterproductive to their quality of life.”

Ensey said he saw a $32,000 quote to inspect one association jump to $50,000 six months later. “That’s price gouging to me,” he said.

Santiago acknowledged that a shortage of engineers and architects capable of conducting the inspections is driving up costs. While his firm’s charges aren’t up more than 5% to 10%, he said other firms will “certainly” increase their prices as the deadline approaches.

Associations can miss the Dec. 31 inspection deadline, he said, as long as they have signed a contract to have an inspection completed.

No sign of inspection deadline extension

Right now, there’s no sign that leaders of the state House and Senate will be willing to delay the Dec. 31 deadline that was signed into law after the 2021 overnight collapse of the Champlain Towers South in Surfside that killed 98 residents.

Senate President Kathleen Passidomo in mid-August said she would not call a special session before the end of the year. In a letter to fellow senators, Passidomo said that post-election committee meetings offer the “best opportunity” to secure “analysis, collaboration and input” on the issue prior to the regular session that begins next March.

The incoming Senate and House leaders have also resisted calls for a special session, telling a reporter for the Tampa Bay Times and Miami Herald that they don’t want to rush changes if safety won’t be the main focus.

Sen. Jason Pizzo, a Democrat from Miami and leading voice on condominium issues, said flatly, “There’s not going to be a special session.”

Pizzo criticized the notion that elderly condo owners can’t afford high special assessments.

“Thirty, sometimes 40 years have passed and we’re seeing the same person when they weren’t 80 but they were 40, joined in and voting to waive reserves and never put any money away for any repairs or replacements, and never asked, and very often maybe served on the board or had a position and wanted all the economies of scale and benefits of multifamily living with zero of the burden,” he said.

DeSantis called on lawmakers to come up with ideas to keep condo unit owners on fixed incomes from losing their homes if they cannot afford increased assessments stemming from the cost of the inspections or repairs identified by them. But the governor ruled out calling a special session himself for now, saying that without a plan “teed up,” legislators would be “running around like chickens with their heads cut off.”

Ideas for keeping seniors in their units

Several South Florida-based lawmakers said they were still mulling ways to ease unit owners’ financial burdens.

Chip LaMarca, a Republican representing eastern Broward County communities stretching from Deerfield Beach to Fort Lauderdale, said finding a solution “is not as easy as some have suggested it might be.”

“I know that many of our residents are anxious, understandably, but the people of Florida deserve a solution that balances their safety with affordability,” LaMarca said.

Ideas that have come up during conversations with condo residents and legislative colleagues, he said, include a revolving loan fund for unit owners who cannot immediately contribute their full shares of repair costs to expansion of home improvement loan programs like PACE (Property Assessed Clean Energy). PACE programs allow homeowners to borrow money for improvements with no credit check and no money down. But they have drawn criticism by securing repayment through liens placed against homes and adding loan payments to homeowners’ property tax bills.

Rep. Robin Bartleman, who represents southwestern Broward County, says she is working with a committee comprised of four condominiums in her district to develop ideas that she plans to take to Tallahassee.

Help is needed, she said, for “the 90-year-old who paid off her mortgage but can’t afford association dues and can’t get a second job at her age.”

Rep. Dan Daley, a Democrat whose district includes Coral Springs, said extending the deadline to fund reserves could help fixed-income seniors keep their homes. “I also think you have some good operators, boards and managers who were doing it right and taking care of their properties and prioritizing upgrades, improvements and replacements,” he said. “Those folks shouldn’t be penalized to try and bring everyone else up to par.”

Other Florida residents are coming up with ideas as well.

Business consultant Louis Orloff, founder of St. Petersburg-based Orloff Advisors LLC, suggested freeing up money for inspections and repairs by allowing state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to finance property insurance payments for up to five years.

Wendell Ensey, president of Century Village in Pembroke Pines, suggests giving associations three to five years to fund reserves for repairs identified in the Milestone Inspections.

“It took 30 to 40 years for some of these problems to flare up and they want to solve it in one year,” Ensey said. “They want new reserves put in — full reserves that are mandatory — and they want it by the end of this year,” Ensey said.

But Passidomo, in her August letter, said condo associations won’t be required to accumulate all of the funds “necessary to account for the remaining useful life for each reserve component” — such as electrical and plumbing systems — “by 2025.”

“Unless there is an immediate safety problem, the law does not require reserves to be fully funded at the completion of the reserve study,” she wrote. “The amount that needs to be reserved is calculated based on the estimated remaining useful life and estimated replacement cost of the item.”

If the cost to replace a roof in 10 years is $100,000, she wrote, the association is not required to immediately fund the full $100,000. “Instead, the association must reserve sufficient funds each year to have the required funding available at the time of anticipated repairs.”

Ron Hurtibise covers business and consumer issues for the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can be reached by phone at 954-356-4071, on Twitter @ronhurtibise or by email at rhurtibise@sunsentinel.com.