Buying an older beach condo? The rules changed. Ask these questions.

The rule, as it stands in 2026: every condominium building with three or more habitable stories must undergo a milestone structural inspection by December 31 of the year it turns 30, and again every ten years after that. Local governments can require it earlier — as soon as 25 years — based on local conditions. The 2025 legislature refined the regime rather than retreating from it: House Bill 913, effective July 2025, clarified that the trigger is three or more habitable stories and added disclosure rules to prevent conflicts of interest among the engineers, architects, and contractors involved.

Do the math against the beaches’ building stock and the scope becomes obvious: a tower built in 1974 crossed its milestone threshold decades ago and is now on the repeating ten-year cycle; even the 1990s buildings are inside the window. For a buyer, the milestone report is not paperwork — it is the closest thing that exists to an honest structural biography of the building, and whether the association has completed it, what phase two found (if triggered), and what repairs followed are the first three questions of any older-condo purchase I handle.

The second pillar is the Structural Integrity Reserve Study — SIRS, under Florida Statute 718.112(2)(g). Every residential condo association with buildings of three or more habitable stories must complete one at least every ten years; the first round came due December 31, 2025 for most associations (with buildings aligning SIRS to a 2025–26 milestone inspection allowed until December 31, 2026). The SIRS inventories the structural components — roof, load-bearing walls, floors, foundation, waterproofing, plumbing, electrical — and sets the reserve funding needed to maintain them.

The part that changed everything: for budgets adopted on or after December 31, 2024, associations can no longer vote to waive or underfund those structural reserves. For decades, low condo fees were often an illusion maintained by skipping the reserve line; that option is now illegal for the structural components. This is the single biggest reason beach-condo fees have climbed — and, honestly framed, the increase is the price of the building telling the truth. Industry reporting suggests a large share of associations statewide missed the first SIRS deadline, which makes "show me your completed SIRS" a genuinely discriminating question in 2026, not a formality.

Before a client goes hard on an older condo, the association answers these: Has the milestone inspection been completed, and may we see the report — including phase two, if it was triggered? Is the SIRS complete, and what does its funding schedule show for the next ten years? What special assessments are pending, approved, or under discussion — not just levied — and what did the last three years of board minutes argue about? What percentage of the SIRS-recommended reserves is the association actually funding? And what does the master insurance policy cost now versus three years ago?

Two mechanics buyers consistently get wrong. First, a pending special assessment is a negotiation item at contract — who pays it is settled by the purchase agreement, not by custom, and the answer belongs in your offer, not in a post-closing surprise. Second, Florida’s condo-resale disclosure process exists precisely so buyers can see the association’s finances before being bound — but the documents only protect you if someone actually reads them against the SIRS and the milestone report. That cross-reading is the service; the documents alone are just paper. What oceanfront actually costs to own →

Walk the beaches condo market in 2026 and one phrase appears in listing after listing: renovation complete, special assessments paid in full by seller. Seascape — the 1974 ten-story tower at 1601 Ocean Drive South — is the local textbook case: the building completed a multi-million-dollar restoration in 2023–24 covering the roof, facade work, elevators, and its milestone-driven repairs, and its resales now advertise the paid-off assessments as a feature. That is exactly how this era is supposed to work: the building does its structural truth-telling, owners fund it, and the resale market prices the completed work.

The buyer’s insight is to read the phrase in both directions. A building that has finished its milestone repairs and funded its SIRS is often the safer purchase even at a higher fee — you are buying a known structure with the bill behind it. A building with suspiciously low fees and no completed SIRS is not cheaper; it is a building whose bill has not arrived yet. At the beaches in 2026, the fee number alone tells you almost nothing — the reserve schedule under it tells you everything. The Jax Beach condo market, building by building →