FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Hours after the catastrophic partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, stunned members of condo communities along the South Florida coast predicted the disaster would trigger a massive ripple effect of residents scrambling for ways to ensure that tragedy would not strike their homes.
But the seriousness of the episode was not compelling enough for a majority of lawmakers in Tallahassee to act. The 2022 state Legislature failed to agree on a package of safety reforms that would have required inspections of older buildings, mandated financial reserves for condo associations and provided more public transparency for maintenance and inspection reports.
Before Surfside, Broward and Miami-Dade counties were the only counties statewide to require condo associations in buildings 40 years or older to conduct inspections of their buildings. And Florida law makes it easy for condo owners to take a pass on funding reserves for future repairs on their buildings.
