Condominium reserves under chapter 718

Two layers of rules

Section 718.112 works in layers. The first applies to every residential condominium: the annual budget must include reserve accounts. The second applies to buildings three habitable stories or higher: they need a structural integrity reserve study, and the reserves for the items it covers are locked in.

Reserves every condo must budget

The budget must reserve for capital expenditures and deferred maintenance, including at least:

• roof replacement,
• building painting,
• pavement resurfacing, whatever their cost, and
• any other item whose deferred maintenance or replacement cost is more than $25,675, the figure the state posted for 2026.

That threshold used to be $10,000. The 2025 law (HB 913) raised it to $25,000 and tied it to inflation; the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes now posts the adjusted number by February 1 each year.

Waiving ordinary reserves

An association controlled by unit owners may provide no reserves, or less than the full amount, by a majority vote of the total voting interests. That vote is about the ordinary reserves only. For budgets adopted on or after December 31, 2024, an association that must have a SIRS cannot waive or reduce reserves for the SIRS items, and cannot spend those reserves on anything else.

Funding SIRS reserves

The statute allows SIRS reserves to be funded by regular assessments, special assessments, lines of credit or loans. A special assessment, line of credit or loan needs a majority of the total voting interests. Reserves for two or more SIRS components may be pooled, provided the pooled balance covers what all of them will need.

For budgets adopted on or before December 31, 2028, owners may also vote to pause or reduce reserve contributions for up to two budget years to pay for repairs a milestone inspection has called for. See milestone inspections and reserves.

Who signs, who reads

Directors who willfully and knowingly fail to get a required SIRS breach their fiduciary duty. An officer or director must sign an affidavit acknowledging receipt of the completed study. Within 45 days of receiving it, the association must give each owner a copy or tell them it is available on request, and file a statement with the Division saying it has done so.

A study for every condo

Only taller buildings need a SIRS, but no condo can budget its required reserves without remaining lives and replacement costs. A garden-style condo usually orders an ordinary reserve study covering everything; a building of three stories or more orders a SIRS and, ideally, one document with both schedules so the non-waivable part is plain.

See what a study costs in Florida for typical fees.