PINELLAS PARK, Fla. – Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis held a roundtable in Pinellas Park on Thursday to discuss possible solutions for condo owners being hit with huge assessments and fees following the collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside.
The collapse in June 2021 killed 98 people and sent shockwaves to Tallahassee, where lawmakers during a special session the following year passed a measure setting rules for inspections of condominium buildings at least three stories tall and requiring condo associations to have financial reserves for repairs.
Senate Bill 4-D, Building Safety, went into effect when DeSantis signed it that May. We’ve now seen some Central Florida condo owners express mounting fears of either losing or having to sell their properties, staring down new costs associated with the law — some as high as $100,000 per resident — which have since trickled down to them.
At this week’s roundtable, DeSantis joined condo owners and association leaders to go back over much of what had been talked about at another event earlier this month in Miami Lakes, where he floated the idea of providing low-interest loans to offset the fees and expressed a more general desire to find solutions before the end of the calendar year.
“I think the path forward would be, by the end of the year, generating the ideas that the legislature can then take, run with, and produce some reforms that are going to be sensible, that are going to continue to support transparency, that will support safety, but are also going to do that in a way that is not going to be something driving people out of their condo units,” DeSantis said Thursday.
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A news release from the governor’s office summarizing Thursday’s roundtable made mention of House Bill 1021, Community Associations, which DeSantis signed in June. The release described the legislation as having “enhanced accountability for condo board members, improved transparency for residents, and strengthened enforcement mechanisms for those found to be out of compliance with safety standards.”
In effect since July 1, the law requires the management of community associations (CAs), such as condo associations (COAs) or homeowners associations (HOAs), to return CA records within 20 days of a service agreement being terminated, among making the following changes:
- Various new requirements regarding record-keeping by community associations
- Criminal penalties for associations accepting kickbacks or engaging in fraudulent voting activities
- Requirements for residential COAs with 10 or more units to meet at least once quarterly for community members to ask questions
The 2025 regular Legislative Session begins on March 4, with lawmakers in the Florida House and Senate set to start holding meetings in December of this year, but Senate President Kathleen Passidomo, R-Naples, has already ruled out a special session to address condo issues before the November election.
“In my view, no law is perfect. Sometimes issues arise during implementation, and there is often room for improvement,” Passidomo said in an August memo. “However, the legislative process best serves Floridians when there is analysis, collaboration, and input from all stakeholders. I believe the upcoming committee weeks and regular session following our post-election reorganization provide the best opportunity for this type of dialogue.”
Toward the end of Thursday’s roundtable, DeSantis — referencing the reforms he had called for lawmakers to come up with — chided a reporter who asked why he wasn’t going to call for a special session sooner and provide more time ahead of the Jan. 1, 2025 deadline for CAs to have their inspections done and reserves in check.
“Well, if you were listening to what I said instead of looking on your phone, you would have said that you can call a special session without having the reforms lined up; if they’re half baked, people just run around like chickens with their heads cut off and you could end up generating a product that causes problems,” DeSantis said. “So we’re doing this very thoughtfully, I’ve made it very clear to the public that we are going to do something, and I don’t even think I’m going to need to. I think they’re going to want to call a session when they’re in anyways. So it’s going to happen, but we gotta do this thoughtfully and we gotta make sure that this is giving the relief people need, that we are perhaps recognizing distinctions between condo associations and condos that have performed well and have done the things that need to be done, and maybe some of the others that are more in the minority but that maybe haven’t done that. So, those things need to be hashed out.”
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