The short answer: if your community is a homeowners’ association governed by Chapter 720 of the Florida Statutes, the structural integrity reserve study (SIRS) and milestone inspection requirements almost certainly don’t apply to you. Those rules were written for condominiums and cooperatives. But many Florida communities that residents call “the HOA” are legally condominiums, and the physical risks the laws were written to address don’t care which statute governs you.
Here’s how to tell where your community stands, and what your board should be doing either way.
Why so many HOA boards are confused
After the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside in June 2021, the Florida Legislature passed SB 4-D in 2022, creating mandatory milestone inspections and structural integrity reserve studies. It has been amended several times since, including by SB 154 (2023), HB 1021 (2024), and HB 913 (2025).
News coverage, vendor marketing, and even some management company notices tend to describe all of this as “new HOA laws.” In everyday speech, “HOA” means any community association. In Florida law, it means something specific, and the difference decides whether a SIRS is mandatory for your board.
Condo or HOA? How to tell which one you are
Florida treats the two very differently:
- Condominiums (Chapter 718): owners hold title to a unit, and the association owns and maintains the common elements, which usually include the building structure, roof, and exterior walls.
- Homeowners’ associations (Chapter 720): owners hold title to a lot and the home on it, and the association owns and maintains shared property such as roads, pools, clubhouses, and landscaping.
You can usually confirm which you are in a few minutes:
- Read the title of your governing document. A “Declaration of Condominium” means Chapter 718. A “Declaration of Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions” usually means Chapter 720.
- Look at your deed. A deed that conveys a “unit” points to a condominium; one that conveys a “lot” points to an HOA.
- Check which statute your documents cite. Bylaws and amendments typically reference the chapter that governs the association.
- Ask your association attorney if the answer isn’t clear. Some communities, especially older ones, have unusual structures.
Watch out for townhomes. Many Florida townhome communities are legally condominiums even though everyone calls them “the HOA.” If your association maintains the roofs and the owners own “units,” take a closer look before assuming none of this applies.
What the SIRS law actually requires (for condominiums)
For condominium associations, the SIRS requirement applies to buildings three stories or more in height. Only four kinds of professionals may perform the study:
- A Florida-licensed engineer (Chapter 471)
- A Florida-licensed architect (Chapter 481)
- A Reserve Specialist (RS) certified by the Community Associations Institute
- A Professional Reserve Analyst (PRA) certified by the Association of Professional Reserve Analysts
The study covers the components most tied to structural safety and water intrusion:
- Roof
- Structure, including load-bearing walls and primary structural members
- Fireproofing and fire protection systems
- Plumbing
- Electrical systems
- Waterproofing and exterior painting
- Windows and exterior doors
- Any other item with a deferred maintenance expense or replacement cost above $10,000 whose failure would negatively affect the items above
The study must be updated at least every 10 years, and the association can no longer vote to waive or underfund reserves for these items.
What milestone inspections require
Milestone inspections, created in section 553.899 of the Florida Statutes, apply to condominium and cooperative buildings three stories or more. A licensed engineer or architect inspects the building’s structural components once it reaches 30 years of age, and every 10 years after that. Local governments may require the first inspection at 25 years based on environmental conditions such as proximity to salt water.
When an HOA community is still affected
Even a Chapter 720 HOA can feel these laws indirectly:
- Master associations with condo sub-associations. If your community includes condominium buildings with their own associations, those associations carry the SIRS and milestone obligations, and the costs can ripple into shared budgets and property values.
- Buyers and lenders. Purchasers and lenders now ask harder questions about reserves and building condition across the board. An HOA that can show current condition data and a credible reserve plan is easier to sell into.
- Insurers. Carriers in Florida’s post-reform market scrutinize roof age and condition. That applies to any building the association insures, whatever statute governs it.
What Florida law does require of HOA boards
Chapter 720 has its own rules, and recent reforms have tightened them:
- Reserves: if your governing documents require reserve accounts, or the members voted to establish them, the board must fund them as budgeted unless the members vote to waive or reduce funding. See section 720.303(6).
- Director education and records: HB 1203 (2024) added annual education requirements for HOA directors and, for larger associations, a website requirement for official records. Board members who do not meet this requirement are to be automatically suspended until the requirement is met. The certifications are to be kept on the HOA’s website as part of its permanent public record.
What your HOA board should do anyway
The Legislature targeted condominiums because they are where structural failures are most catastrophic. But the underlying problem, boards making capital decisions without current, independent information about what they maintain, applies to every association. Before your next budget cycle:
- Inventory what the association maintains. Roofs (common in townhome HOAs), clubhouses, pools, seawalls, retaining walls, roads, drainage, and gates. You can’t fund what you haven’t listed.
- Get current condition data. Not the contractor’s opinion of what needs replacing, and not the last reserve study’s assumptions from five years ago. Independent, documented condition data is the foundation for everything else. An Essential Scan is a one-time way to get it.
- Update or commission a reserve study, even if it isn’t mandatory. It is the single best defense against the special assessment nobody saw coming.
- Document board decisions and their basis. When an owner challenges a budget or a project, minutes that show the board acted on current, independent information are what protect the directors.
- Get independent eyes on major capital projects. When our founder served as vice president and treasurer of a 132-unit Tampa HOA during a roof and gutter replacement across 33 buildings, the lesson was that the contractor cannot be the only party verifying the contractor’s own work.
Board members are volunteers who have other responsibilities, jobs, and areas of expertise, while property managers often oversee multiple communities at the same time. Contractors understand these competing demands and can sometimes take advantage of them.
During that project, the HOA was given assurances that damaged infrastructure would be repaired at the end of the project, that specific care would be taken during construction, and that all project terms would be followed. The board ultimately learned that waiting until the end of a project to address these issues can leave an HOA with very little leverage.
The contractor may still retain the ability to place liens on the property for the full contract amount, significantly limiting the HOA’s negotiating position. It was a difficult lesson to learn, but ultimately a defining one: HOAs need to protect their leverage throughout a project, rather than trying to resolve problems after the work is complete.
Questions to bring to your next board meeting
- Is our association governed by Chapter 718 or Chapter 720, and have we confirmed it with our attorney?
- Does anything we maintain include buildings three stories or taller?
- When was our last reserve study, and was it based on a physical inspection?
- Which of our major components are within five years of their expected replacement?
- If a named storm hit next month, do we have documented, dated condition records for our insurer?
Where to start
If you’re not sure where your association’s biggest exposure sits, the free Property Risk Pulse takes about four minutes and scores your community across physical, financial, operational, and governance risk.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Florida’s community association laws change frequently. Confirm how they apply to your association with a Florida-licensed attorney.
Sources: Florida Statutes §718.112 (condominium bylaws, reserves, and SIRS), §553.899 (milestone inspections), and §720.303 (HOA budgets and reserves).