Florida condo owner fears new regulations won’t protect against another Champlain Towers collapse

(27 Dec 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Surfside, Florida – 19 December 2024
1. View of condo looking up
2. Man running on beach trail

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hallandale Beach, Florida – 27 November 2024
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Kelli Roiter, Florida condo owner:
++SOUND BEGINS IN SHOT 1 AND ENDS IN SHOT 4++
"There's another Champlain Towers around the corner. And I hate to say it when you're here, but you're sitting in one. Ticking time bomb."
4. Wide Roiter in her living room
5. Photographs on wall
6. SOUNDBITE (English) Kelli Roiter, Florida condo owner:
++SOUND BEGINS IN SHOT 4 AND ENDS IN SHOT 7++
“There are nights I wake up hearing a creak and I jump. And then I remind myself that, no, no, no, we're safe. But am I safe? We haven’t repaired the garage. We haven't passed our fifty-year recertification."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Surfside, Florida – 19 December 2024
7. Wide of beach
8. View of condo balcony with cracks

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hallandale Beach, Florida – 27 November 2024
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Kelli Roiter, Florida condo owner:
++SOUND BEGINS IN SHOT 7 AND ENDS IN SHOT 10++
"What am I concerned about? When I look at spalling concrete, when I look at exposed rebar, I'm concerned. When I look at new legislation that is not going to be policed… How do I know it's not going to be policed? Because they're not policing it now and my building just had a reserve study that is not right."
10. Family photographs
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Kelli Roiter, Florida condo owner:
++SOUND BEGINS IN SHOT 10 AND ENDS IN SHOT 13++
" We had one (reserve study) in (20)22. Why was another one done in 23? Why was it done? To come up with completely different numbers. To double the estimated useful life of things and to halve their costs in order to come up with an amount that people applauded at, that maintenance and special assessments weren’t raised and it was wonderful. Take your life… you’re going to risk your life and you’re going to make legislation to go to the lowest common denominator?”

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Surfside, Florida – 19 December 2024
12. Various drone shots of beachfront condos ++MUTE AT SOURCE++
++OVERLAID IN SHOT 11++
13. View of construction crane
STORYLINE:
Florida condominium owners are looking at higher costs from condo associations in the new year, a consequence of a safety law passed by state lawmakers in 2022.

It requires condo associations to have sufficient reserves to cover major repairs and to conduct a survey of reserves every decade. Because of the law, older condos — found largely in South Florida, according to state records — are facing hefty increases to association payments to fund the reserves and repair costs.

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the law in response to the partial collapse of Champlain Towers South that killed 98 people in Surfside in June 2021. New regulations require condo associations for buildings with three or more stories to file an inspection report focused on its structure, maintenance and expected costs for repairs or renovations by Dec. 31.

The report is just a small sector of the large-scale issue in Florida’s condo and property insurance crisis. A May report from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation noted that the average homeowner’s insurance premium in Florida is approximately $3,600, about $1,000 more than the national average, according to the National Association of Realtors.


She said her building, a few miles from Champlain Towers South, is showing some of the same problems that were visible before that building collapsed.



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