[Ladywithafan]

Originally Posted by Ladywithafan

Florida experienced the beginning of the condominium boom in the early 70's which makes many of the associations more than 50 years old. With the exception of Broward and Dade counties, there were no inspections required for associations 30 years and older. The can was just kicked down the road with respect to deferred maintenance.

Milestone studies and SIRS (structural integrity reserve studies) are to be completed by December 31, 2024; all structural reserves must be fully funded after December 31, 2024 as well.

Insurance is now at least half of many associations' operating budgets with legal following a closed second at 15-25%, that doesn't leave whole lot for landscaping, utilities, cable etc. does it?

Association documents have a clause for "termination of condominium" and this may be the only way out of the pyramid scheme.

Actually, all reserves must be fully funded according their reserve studies as of January 1, 2025.

[beach43ofus]

I hope the OP (move4ward) tells this to everyone they know from back home about this, so they don't even think about moving here to Florida

[Ladywithafan]

Update:

Only structural reserves must be fully funded as of 2025; non-structural can be waived with proxy/members vote. Disclaimer: partial funding may result in special assessments.

[Lincolnian]

Many HOAs are driven by the desire of the residents to not raise the fees. One of my relatives lives in a complex that did not increase the fees for 13 years. It is no surprise they are now looking at shocking increases to pay for the new legislative requirements, deferred maintenance, increases in insurance, utilities (water) and electric for common areas as well as general services that have increased over the years such as landscaping, pool service, and pest control. Nobody rides for free. If you are not increasing the fees it means that something is not getting done because in this extreme case it is impossible for a budget set 13 years ago to support all the same services without seeing a significant reduction somewhere else. It turns out in this case that area was reserves which they used money from cover shortfalls. They are also self managed and had officers who re-elected to the HOA Board of Directors for many years by senior members of the community who voted for them because the Board didn't raise fees.

Our HOA's insurance has nearly tripled since Surfside. We are a well maintained building with solid reserves and a history of no claims yet due to age and proximity to the ocean we still ended up with Citizens as our only insurer choice. The result of this insurance increase has added nearly 45% to my current HOA fee compared to what I was paying in June 21. Is this my HOA's fault? No, if they did not plan for and present a budget that includes this expense they would not be meeting their fiduciary responsibility.

[Chas863]

Originally Posted by Lincolnian

Many HOAs are driven by the desire of the residents to not raise the fees. One of my relatives lives in a complex that did not increase the fees for 13 years. It is no surprise they are now looking at shocking increases to pay for the new legislative requirements, deferred maintenance, increases in insurance, utilities (water) and electric for common areas as well as general services that have increased over the years such as landscaping, pool service, and pest control. Nobody rides for free. If you are not increasing the fees it means that something is not getting done because in this extreme case it is impossible for a budget set 13 years ago to support all the same services without seeing a significant reduction somewhere else. It turns out in this case that area was reserves which they used money from cover shortfalls. They are also self managed and had officers who re-elected to the HOA Board of Directors for many years by senior members of the community who voted for them because the Board didn't raise fees.

Our HOA's insurance has nearly tripled since Surfside. We are a well maintained building with solid reserves and a history of no claims yet due to age and proximity to the ocean we still ended up with Citizens as our only insurer choice. The result of this insurance increase has added nearly 45% to my current HOA fee compared to what I was paying in June 21. Is this my HOA's fault? No, if they did not plan for and present a budget that includes this expense they would not be meeting their fiduciary responsibility.

They must have had one heck of a LARGE amount of reserves to cover all the increases for 13 years!!! It's hard for me to believe that SOMEONE didn't look at what was happening over all those years and wonder what they would do when the reserve money ran out.

[MOforthewin]

I work at Publix part time. Very easy way to gage the economy. Like The fake news MSDNC and CNN tout economic growth and other Biden crap.

As one of my managers said. When looking at our sales data with our prices shooting up because of the inflation he looks at the items per transaction. Our items per transaction has been going down the past year. Customer count hasn't gone down, but the number of items per transaction has.

Meaning customers are buying less items when they grocery shop even though sales numbers didn't go down.

That is how the gubermint manipulates numbers. Tax revenue is up because stuff costs more. Just like it appears sales are up. Items went up 20 percent in prices it makes it look good but people are buying less items.

I notice this with meat especially.

Any idiot should be able to tell how they word the numbers.

My same Publix customers I also see them in walmart buying their other stuff they don't buy at Publix. I mean dry goods and such since they're cheaper there but same brand name.