Worried about how special assessments could put a kink into your condo-buying goal?<\/p>\n
Do your homework is the bottom line afforded by Li Bensimon<\/a>, a real estate agent at Bensimon Luxury<\/a>, affiliated with Compass Florida, LLC, a licensed real estate broker covering the greater Miami metro area and beyond.<\/p>\n In Bensimon’s latest report on Miami Condo Special Assessments<\/a>, released to Islander News this week, of the 10,157 active condo listings in Miami on Sept. 5, 1,890 declare a special assessment. Of the 7,974 listings that answered her polling question at all, that is 23.7%, or roughly 1 in 4.<\/p>\n Bensimon said those stats are not spread evenly.<\/p>\n In buildings finished before 1998, it’s 35.9% (1,470 of 4,090 that answered). In buildings finished in 1998 or later, it’s 10.8% (420 of 3,884). So, in essence, an older Miami condo is 3.3 times as likely to be carrying a declared special assessment as a newer one, she said.<\/p>\n But, it should not be perceived as a negative in your condo hunt.<\/p>\n “I wouldn’t avoid older buildings,” said Bensimon who, since moving from Israel to Miami eight years ago has become a trusted expert in the South Florida real estate market.<\/p>\n “Some of the best-run associations in Miami sit in 1970s towers that did the structural work early, funded the reserves, and are now the safest purchase on the beach because the (recertification) bill is behind them. What I’d do is stop treating “no special assessment” on a listing as an answer. Read the box. If it’s blank, ask why.”<\/p>\n She recommends asking:<\/p>\n * Can I see the most recent reserve study?<\/p>\n * May I see the last two budgets?<\/p>\n * Has the milestone inspection been done and what did Phase Two find?<\/p>\n * If there’s not an assessment today, why won’t there be one next year?<\/p>\n In her report, Bensimon said , “A blank field (on the polling answers) is not the same as none.”<\/p>\n She also suggests looking the building up in Compass’ condo association directory<\/a> to see who’s actually registered as running it.<\/p>\n Does a special assessment declaration on a listing mean the building is unsafe?<\/p>\n “No,” she said in a reply in her report. “It means the association has levied a charge beyond the regular budget, which can be for concrete restoration, a roof, a seawall, elevators, insurance, or reserve catch-up. Many well-run buildings carry one precisely because they are doing the work.”<\/p>\n Results from her poll show that buildings built in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s hover around 40% when declaring a special assessment. Buildings in the 1990s cut that percentage in half, while buildings constructed in the 2010s are at 4.3% for assessments of those who answered.<\/p>\n Miami neighborhoods with the most condo special assessments, based on MLS active listings, are Aventura 32.0%, Surfside and Bal Harbour 25.4%, Sunny Isles Beach 23.0%, Miami Beach 22.5%, Brickell 12.7%, and Downtown Miami 11.7%.<\/p>\n “The older coastal towers carry the assessments; the post-2005 urban core mostly does not,” Bensimon noted in her study.<\/p>\n The year 1998 that Bensimon uses in the data is no coincidence.<\/p>\n She said that when Miami-Dade rewrote its recertification rule on June 1, 2022, it stopped being a flat 40 years. A coastal condominium of three habitable stories or more within 3 miles of the coastline, built 1998 or later, is now on a 25-year clock. Most other buildings built 1993 or later are on 30 years. Then every 10 years after that.<\/p>\n She explains that rule further on a recertification piece<\/a> she published, and there’s a calculator<\/a> that tells you which clock a specific building is on.<\/p>\n Her advice to sellers is always declare if the building has a special assessment, because “The buyer’s lender will find it anyway, and a declared assessment with a payment plan attached is a negotiable fact. An undeclared one that surfaces in the estoppel letter is a dead deal.”<\/p>\n One more important question she answered:<\/p>\n What happens if a Florida condo owner cannot pay a special assessment?<\/p>\n “Under section 718.116 of the Florida Statutes, a delinquent assessment accrues interest at the rate in the declaration, or 18% a year if the declaration is silent, plus an administrative late fee of up to the greater of $25 or 5% of each late installment where the documents allow it. Payments are applied by statute to interest first, then the late fee, then collection costs and attorney fees, and last to the assessment.<\/p>\n “The association holds a lien on the unit and can foreclose it. An owner who disputes a recorded lien can file a notice of contest, after which the association has 90 days to sue or the lien is void.”<\/p>\n