ORLANDO, Fla. — State lawmakers are looking at a number of bills aimed at providing relief for condo owners and associations across the state.

What You Need To Know

  • State is discussing eight bills to put less burden on condo owners

  • SB 1742 would allow condo boards to invest reserve funds

  • Bill would also allow owners to help secure a line of credit 

It would most notably ease a mandate for reserve funds that caused many to raise fees to make up the cash.

Condo owners the past two years say they are shocked by the fees they now pay monthly or quarterly. Whether it’s money going in to the operating budget or reserves budget, the two can add up to a mortgage payment.

That cost just on fees to a condo association alone has condo owners across the state asking for help.

When the Champlain Towers in Surfside collapsed in 2021, condos in Florida were put on notice: Do a better job to properly ensure buildings are structurally sound, and be properly funded to fix what is found in a structural integrity report.

“It was in fact a good idea,” Marbella Condominiums condo board member Tom Baker said. “The problem was it was poorly executed.”

Following hurricane Ian and Nicole in 2022, Tom Baker’s Marbella Condo in Daytona Beach Shores was hit hard.

It wasn’t covered by property insurance. Property insurance didn’t pay out a dime to the association or owners according to Baker.

Because of that Baker and his 23 other owners in his building were each hit with an $80,000 assessment. 

Following the storms, his monthly dues went from $850 a month to $1,350 a month. The increase was primarily generated by the rise in insurance, but the reality was money had to continue to fund reserves. Not just for fixes today, but fixes for later.

“People generally do not want the dues to go up," Baker says. “They want the cheap way out, which is a mistake. The idea is you should be fully funded, always.”

Currently at the legislative session in Tallahassee, there are eight condo bills taking aim to ease the burden on condo owners.

Part of SB 1742 would allow boards like Tom’s to invest reserve funds by buying CDs, a way to help earn interest while asking less of owners to put into reserves. 

“If we are requiring you to collect this money and you don’t need it for 10 years, five years, seven years, 15 years, you should be able to get some earnings,” Travis Moore, an HOA Lobbyist with Moore Relations, said from Tallahassee. “This sets up the guardrails that you would need to have to make that happen.”

The bill would also help owners secure a line of credit to help maintain all or part of the mandated reserve fund.

Next on Baker's to-do list for his building is improving the elevators. They work now, but like everything with a building, it all has a life span. He estimates the project will cost $200,000.

“We are going to wait until one of them breaks, and then we will fix it, and we do,” Baker states.

The can do that with funded reserves. Otherwise that would be a $200,000 bill assessed to 24 owners.