Florida Lawmakers Push for Condo Safety Compliance Count as Deadline Looms

For the thousands of condominium owners on the Treasure Coast who have spent the past three years navigating soaring fees, special assessments, and confusing state mandates tied to Florida's post-Surfside safety overhaul, a question haunts every commission meeting and hallway argument: Is anyone actually keeping track of who's complying?

House budget negotiators want an answer.

A provision tucked into the House's opening offer in the ongoing budget Special Session would require the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to file a statewide compliance report by Dec. 1, detailing how many condominium associations have met structural integrity reserve study requirements enacted after the June 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside — a disaster that killed 98 people.

The numbers already on the record are not reassuring. Of more than 11,270 condominium associations statewide subject to the structural integrity reserve study, or SIRS, mandate, just 4,096 — roughly 36% — had self-reported compliance by the then-applicable Dec. 31, 2024, deadline, DBPR Secretary Melanie Griffin told House lawmakers in mid-February 2025. Griffin cautioned that even that figure was unreliable: associations were required only to notify the state that a study had been completed, not to submit the underlying documents, leaving regulators unable to verify the claims.

The proposed report would direct DBPR to identify, for Fiscal Year 2025-26, the number of associations that submitted a SIRS, created an online account with the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes, or contacted the Division about noncompliance. The report would go to the chairs of the Senate Appropriations Committee, the House Budget Committee, and the Governor's Office of Policy and Budget, according to public documents. No separate funding is attached to the proposal.

The push for accountability comes after the Legislature extended the SIRS deadline by one year — to Dec. 31, 2025 — through HB 913, sponsored by Sen. Jennifer Bradley and then-Rep. Vicki Lopez. That bill also gave associations new financial flexibility, including the ability to tap lines of credit for reserve obligations and invest reserve funds in certificates of deposit.

The compliance snapshot the House is seeking could be the most complete picture yet of whether Florida's landmark condo safety reforms, which began with SB 4D in 2022, are reaching the aging buildings they were designed to protect. No Senate companion to the reporting provision has been filed as of publication.

No Senate analog to the House reporting provision exists yet, and the chambers also remain at odds over DBPR staffing: the House would eliminate a planned $739,331 competitive-pay adjustment for Division personnel, while the Senate has moved to preserve it.

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