TALHASSEE – Miami lawmakers are proposing to terminate the Condominium Association’s national property insurance that shuns compliance with the new Building Safety Act, which was passed after the collapse of the Surfside 12-storey residential tower in 2021.
Most apartment buildings must have had a building safety inspection and inspection by December 31st last year, which outlined the budget recommended for future building maintenance.
But so far, most of Florida’s more than 11,270 apartment associations are needed to obtain research to fund future repairs, according to the secretary of the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. He spoke to House members during a panel discussion last week. There are no criminal penalties for violations.
Over the weekend, Republican Rep. Vicki Lopez filed an HB 913. This is a 99-page bill that refines the condominium law, which has been subject to any legislative meeting since the Surfside tragedy.
One of the clauses addresses an issue raised by the Secretary of Business and Professional Regulation last week.
Lopez proposes prohibiting citizens of state-owned real estate insurance companies from providing coverage for apartments that do not comply with the new requirements. She did not respond to requests for comment, but the bill “addresses the need for modernized, efficient and comprehensive condominium management and prioritizes safety and financial sustainability for Florida communities. I’ll deal with it,” he wrote on social media.
The bill also expands access to electronic voting, allowing the association to undertake loans and collect special ratings “without membership approval” to allow payments for the maintenance and repairs of the currently revised building. It’s there.
But Sen. Ileana Garcia, one of Lopez’s Miami-based colleagues, told the Times/Herald “threatens to significantly drive away thousands of apartment owners in Florida.” Companies are striving to enter the market. ”
Garcia said Lopez basically only offers sticks.
“The bill will restrict insurance” and “concatenate compliance, but it cannot provide a viable way for the association to fulfill these duties,” Garcia said. “As a result, many Floridians may lose their insurance, making it the most difficult for persuasive associations to carry out abrupt special assessments that will hit seniors, retirees, low-income people and residents.”
Garcia added: “Citizens have long served as safety nets for residents.”
After the House Panel met, Miami real estate agents posted a video of Lopez at the Condomit Summit on February 14th. After the governor and the associations around the legislative session states stated that the association would associate with a full budget for future building repairs, saying that “there is no financial relief at all” related to the building safety law. I asked the lawmakers to revisit.
“We’re not a business that bails out people who haven’t done the right thing by means,” Lopez said.
One panel member last week said the idea was proposed as Lopez, business and professional regulations secretaries, and others had left the Capitol after the House debate.
Pete Dunbar, a law expert for Florida apartment complexes and lobbyist who spoke to the house last week, said: “I think both the secretary and Rep. Lopez have heard the comments.”
If Lopez’s provisions fall into law, it will primarily affect South Florida.
More than half of the 18,468 citizen-insured condominium buildings are located in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties, a civic spokesman told the Times/Herald on Monday. There are 4,213 associations that manage the buildings of these apartment buildings.
It is unclear how many of them did not comply with the law.
During a discussion in the House last week, Business and Professional Regulation Director Melanie Griffin has made it difficult for the state to confirm that the state has completed the research necessary to fund future building maintenance. He said he had spent a lot of time. More than a third (4,096) of the associations necessary to comply with that provisions do so.
And they are supposed to inform the department that their research is complete, but they do not need to provide additional information and create something that regulators can gather from the limited research. There’s no need.
“In the information that was self-reported to us, the median cost of raising the study was $6,000,” Griffin said.
Times/Herald Tallahassee Bureau Reporter Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.
