South Florida Cities Search For Solutions To Prevent ‘Senior Exodus’ Caused By New Law

Changes to Florida state law requiring condo inspections and repairs are bearing down on unit owners, hitting them with unexpected bills that some can’t afford and raising fears that they will be forced to sell their homes. 

Local officials across South Florida are sounding the alarm about the potential for an exodus of seniors unless states and municipalities create programs to provide financial aid to condo owners on fixed incomes or modest salaries.

“What you're going to see happen — and it's already begun to happen in the tri-county area — is that folks are selling out, and they have no choice,” Fort Lauderdale City Commissioner John Herbst said in an interview this week. “Our senior citizens are essentially being pushed out of their homes because of decades of deferred maintenance and failure to adequately fund the reserves.”

The changes to the laws passed last May are meant to ensure properties are safe to occupy, but many owners are now grappling with steep bills and no way to pay. Local governments have responded by searching for ways to help owners, in one case by offering zero-interest loans and in others by calling on state or county officials to create similar programs. 

“We’re looking for some kind of relief because, otherwise, we’re going to have a senior exodus out of our condos,” Fred Nesbitt, the president of the Galt Mile Community Association, said at a Fort Lauderdale City Commission meeting Tuesday. “Fortunately or unfortunately, however you look at it, there are people coming from the North with cash to buy them.” 

The costs are a result of Senate Bill 4-D, which was passed in the wake of the collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, where 98 people died when the condo tower's unaddressed maintenance issues were partially responsible for one of the deadliest building failures in U.S. history. 

The law requires condo associations to conduct structural integrity reserve studies every 10 years to ensure their properties are safe to occupy, requires associations to increase the amount of money they hold in reserve for repairs, and eliminates their ability to waive or reduce owners’ contributions to the funds.

As a result, many owners are being hit with large special assessments for repairs that weren't previously required by law or had been deferred.

“We have a lot of very old people in our buildings who moved here and bought their unit years ago,” said Nesbitt, who represents owners of 36 high-rise condos and co-ops along a strip of oceanfront property in Fort Lauderdale. “They plan to retire here, they’re paying their assessments, they’re paying their quarterly maintenance and things like that, but now they’re suddenly facing $40K, $50K or $60K assessments.”

The Fort Lauderdale City Commission discussed a resolution Tuesday to urge the Florida Legislature to create a grant or low-interest loan program for full-time residents facing large repair bills. 

“I’d like to ask the state to acknowledge and accept the fact that there a lot of folks up and down the coast who are going to be severely impacted and are probably going to have to relocate away from places that they’ve been living for 20 or 30 years,” Herbst said at the commission meeting Tuesday. 

Herbst, who was previously the Fort Lauderdale city auditor, introduced the resolution to the city commission. He said it was necessary for the state to act to help residents who purchased properties decades ago, many of whom are on fixed incomes and now face steep increases to their condo association contributions. 

The commission seemed receptive to the resolution but opted Tuesday to defer the issue while it confers with the city attorney and state officials about how to best attract the attention of state legislators. 

“I think it has great merit, and I would love to see something like this happen if there is any appetite at the legislature to do anything like this,” Mayor Dean Trantalis said at the meeting. 

Herbst pointed to the Sadowski Act as a potential source of funds. The law, passed in 1992, increased the state tax paid on all real estate transactions and set the money aside for affordable housing initiatives. 

“I don't want to tell the legislature how to do its job. I'm simply asking them to recognize that this is a huge burden on a segment of our population,” he said. “We don't want to force elderly people out of their homes.”

Fort Lauderdale isn’t the only locality looking to find ways to support condo owners. Hollywood City Commissioner Kevin Biederman told Bisnow via email that he also planned to raise the topic of calling on the state to allow the use of Sadowski Act funds to help offset the cost of repairs for condo owners. 

The city commission in Lauderhill, a city of around 75,000 people close to Fort Lauderdale in Broward County, passed a resolution last month that urged the county to create a low-interest loan program for condo owners facing high repair costs. 

A program like the one Lauderhill officials have called for already exists in Miami-Dade County. The Condominium Special Assessment Program offers up to $50K loans with zero interest to condo owners facing special assessments who are making less than 140% of the area median income, which as of May 11 was $101K for a single person. 

To be eligible, applicants must use the condo as their primary residence, and the funds, which are paid back on a 40-year term, would be disbursed directly to the resident’s condo association. 

The program launched in December with $9M in funding and the backing of Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava. But at a March meeting attended by Levine Cava to promote the program, some condo owners in Aventura questioned whether the funding was adequate given that the assessments at a single condo building could surpass $1M. 

An Aventura city spokesperson said he believed the $9M had already been exhausted and the program had received a further cash infusion. Levine Cava's office and a county official listed on the loan program’s website didn't respond to Bisnow’s request for details about the funding.

Herbst told Bisnow the city of Fort Lauderdale doesn't have the tools available to raise funds for a similar program and added that a countywide program wouldn’t be sufficient to address a problem that will plague condo owners up and down Florida’s coast. 

“I looked at the state because the state has created the legislation that is driving this issue, and the state has the ability to do things that localities don't have,” he said. 

Herbst said he hoped state lawmakers would take up the issue during the next legislative session in January and said he and the commission would work to lobby the state to take action. 

While he expects that state officials representing coastal communities will be receptive to creating a funding program, it could take time to convince legislators from inland and rural communities without a lot of condos that providing relief is necessary. 

“The hardest problem we have is trying to get the other 66 counties to buy into the challenges that we experience along the coast,” he said.