Can Florida condo owners still vote to waive reserves?

For decades the reserve waiver was a fixture of Florida condo budget meetings. The board proposed a budget with full reserves, an owner moved to waive them, and the room voted to keep monthly dues down. That habit is now partly closed off by statute. Whether your association can still vote to waive depends on which reserves you mean and how tall your buildings are.

The two kinds of condo reserves

Section 718.112(2)(f) of the Florida Statutes requires every residential condominium budget to include reserve accounts for capital expenditures and deferred maintenance. At a minimum that means roof replacement, building painting and pavement resurfacing, whatever they cost, plus any other item whose deferred maintenance or replacement cost exceeds $25,000, adjusted each year for inflation. The Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes posted the 2026 figure as $25,675.

Call these the ordinary reserves. Every condo has them in its budget, whatever the height of its buildings.

The second kind belongs only to associations that must have a structural integrity reserve study, or SIRS. That is every association with a residential building three habitable stories or higher. The SIRS covers a fixed list: roof, structure, fireproofing and fire protection, plumbing, electrical, waterproofing and exterior painting, windows and exterior doors, and related items above the threshold. The reserves for those items are calculated from the study’s findings.

What owners can still waive

For the ordinary reserves, the old route is still open. An association controlled by unit owners may, by a majority vote of the total voting interests, provide no reserves or less than the statute requires. Note the wording: a majority of all the voting interests in the association, not a majority of those at the meeting. In a 200-unit building that means at least 101 votes for the waiver, however many owners turn up.

So a two-story garden condo with no SIRS obligation can still waive its roof, painting and paving reserves if enough owners agree. Whether it should is another matter, but the vote is lawful.

What owners cannot waive

For budgets adopted on or after December 31, 2024, an association that must obtain a SIRS may not provide waived or reduced reserves for the SIRS items. The same statute adds that, for those budgets, the reserve money for SIRS items may only be used for replacing or maintaining those items.

There are narrow exceptions. A multicondominium association can use an alternative funding method the Division has approved. Owners voting to terminate the condominium may waive the reserves the SIRS recommends. And for budgets adopted on or before December 31, 2028, owners may vote by a majority of total voting interests to pause or reduce reserve contributions for up to two consecutive budgets, to pay for repairs a milestone inspection has called for. Outside those cases, the SIRS reserves go in the budget at the amount the study supports.

A building with mixed heights

Many Florida communities have one tall building and several low ones under a single association. The SIRS applies building by building, so the reserves for the SIRS items in the tall building are locked in, while the low-rise buildings’ components sit in the ordinary schedule. In practice, that means owners may vote to waive part of the budget and must fund the rest. A study that shows both schedules separately makes that meeting much easier to run.

Who may vote, and when

Before turnover, a developer-controlled association may not vote to waive or reduce reserves at all. After turnover, a waiver vote of the ordinary reserves is taken by the unit owners. Most associations take the vote each year alongside the budget it affects; whether an earlier vote carries forward is a question for the association’s attorney, not for the board to guess.

Chapter 720 is different

Homeowners’ associations under chapter 720 follow their own rule. Reserves exist only if the declaration requires them or a majority of the total voting interests creates them. Once they exist, members at a meeting with a quorum may vote to fund less, or nothing, and that waiver applies to one budget year only. If the vote fails, or there is no quorum, the budgeted reserves stand. There is no SIRS in chapter 720, so nothing is locked in by statute.

Why the change matters to owners

The point of the 2022 law was to stop deferral. A building whose reserves were waived year after year often meets its roof or concrete bill with a large special assessment, and a building with structural problems may not have the time to raise it. By making the SIRS reserves non-waivable, the legislature moved that cost into monthly assessments, spread over the life of each item.

For owners that has meant higher dues in many buildings since 2025. The statute offers some tools to soften the jump, including pooled reserve accounts and lines of credit approved by a majority of total voting interests. None of them makes the obligation go away.

What a board can do now

• Know your buildings. Count habitable stories under the Florida Building Code, building by building. That decides which reserves are locked.
• Get the study first. The SIRS numbers set the floor for the non-waivable part. Without them, a budget cannot be built honestly.
• Ask for two schedules. One for SIRS items, one for everything else, so owners can see exactly what they are and are not voting on.
• Read the waiver wording carefully. Majority of total voting interests means proxies and written ballots matter. Count votes before the meeting.
• Talk to the association’s attorney before any waiver vote. Governing documents can be stricter than the statute, and the rules have changed in most recent sessions.

A reserve study will not make the waiver decision for owners, but it puts a price on it. When the board can show what skipping this year’s roof contribution adds to the bill in eight years, the room tends to vote differently.