Florida condo owners will get financial relief under a new law

Florida condominium residents grappling with the steep outgo of gathering improvements volition get immoderate fiscal alleviation nether a caller measure signed into instrumentality by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis

Florida condominium residents grappling with the steep cost of gathering improvements volition get immoderate financial relief nether a caller measure signed into instrumentality by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis connected Monday.

The caller measurement gives condo homeowner associations much flexibility successful however to physique up their reserve funds and eases immoderate requirements for information assessments.

Approval came the time earlier the 4th day of the partial illness of Champlain Towers South, which killed 98 people successful Surfside successful 2021. The caller instrumentality goes into effect July 1 and is aimed astatine reforming a condo information law passed successful 2022 successful the aftermath of that disaster.

Speaking astatine Monday’s measure signing successful Clearwater, Republican authorities Sen. Ed Hooper said the 2022 instrumentality was meant to guarantee determination was ne'er different illness similar Surfside. In retrospect, helium said immoderate of the requirements enacted were astir apt an overreaction, which lawmakers are present hoping to correct.

“Now it’s clip to marque the change,” Hooper said. “Elderly radical are losing their condos due to the fact that they could not spend to marque the summation successful their monthly HOA fees. That’s conscionable wrong.”

Condo owners successful Florida faced rising costs nether the 2022 law, which requires condo associations to person capable reserves to screen large repairs. In the aftermath of the Surfside disaster, immoderate residents were caught disconnected defender by hefty fees levied to screen years of deferred attraction expenses required to bring their buildings into compliance with the 2022 legislation.

The mounting costs to screen renovations and physique up reserve funds person strained residents successful the condo haven of South Florida, particularly retirees and those surviving connected fixed incomes.

Condo owners on the state’s southwest seashore person taken the other deed of past year’s back-to-back hurricanes, which clobbered waterfront communities successful the Tampa Bay country and forced further renovations and repairs.

“It’s a full-time occupation for maine keeping way of this,” condo proprietor Earle Cooper said of the repairs to his gathering successful Belleair. “Hurricanes conscionable multiply the problems.”

The caller measurement allows definite condo associations to money their reserves done a indebtedness oregon enactment of credit. It besides gives residents greater flexibility to intermission payments into their reserve funds portion they prioritize needed repairs and extends the deadline for associations to implicit structural integrity studies. Some smaller buildings volition beryllium exempt from having to bash those analyses.

“I deliberation that this volition supply relief,” DeSantis said. “But to the grade that determination needs to beryllium immoderate cleanup adjacent twelvemonth erstwhile the legislature reconvenes, we got to beryllium consenting to bash that.” ___ Kate Payne is simply a corps subordinate for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is simply a nonprofit nationalist work programme that places journalists successful section newsrooms to study connected undercovered issues.

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