Under a new state law, condominium associations as of July 1 theoretically were able to apply for grants of up to $175,000 to make improvements to strengthen their properties against hurricane damage, but the details and the logistics of the application process will make it practically impossible to get anything done in time for the current hurricane season.
There are also a couple of “poison pills” buried in the text of the new law that make some observers doubt its usefulness.
“We don’t really know yet if this help that is being offered is real, or whether it’s just eyewash,” said one local expert in property management who’s still studying the law and how it will be applied. “The devil will be in the details.”
The recent legislation, HB1029 from the Florida House and SB1366 from the state Senate and signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in May, established the so-called My Safe Florida Condominium Pilot Program providing $30 million in state funds for inspections, followed by partial grants for hurricane damage mitigation projects.
The program will be administered by the state’s Department of Financial Services (DFS), but although the law was effective July 1, the state of Florida website says, “It is anticipated that program applications will not be publicly available for use until the fall of 2024,” in other words after the height of the current hurricane season.
The initiative is an add-on to an earlier similar measure offering help to individual homeowners, the My Safe Florida program. Since so many Floridians live in condominiums and would not be able to get any benefits from the original plan, the legislature felt that the same benefits ought to be made available to condo associations or homeowners associations (HOAs) of condominium buildings.
Taken together, the measures are an attempt to help mitigate catastrophic hurricane damage, thus lowering insurance costs, luring more insurance companies back to the state and relieving the pressure on Citizens, the state-owned insurer of last resort which has been forced to assume billions of dollars’ worth of risks as traditional insurers fled the state.
The condo program would cover up to half the cost of roofing projects and $1,500 per unit for special storm windows and doors. The maximum grant for each condo association would be $175,000.
Here are some of the worrisome details of the program:
- Associations will not be able to apply for grants to cover projects already completed; applications must be for new projects for items such as exterior doors, garage doors, windows, skylights and reinforcements of roof-to-wall connections, roof-deck attachments and secondary water resistance projects.
- There is no double-dipping. In other words, individual unit owners cannot get grants for hurricane strengthening projects of their own properties, and then participate in and get any benefits from a condo association plan.
- The program provides for matching grants only on a 2-to-1 basis. In other words, to get $100,000 grant money, the condo association would have to come up with $50,000 of its own funds for any structural hurricane improvement project.
- A majority of the Board of Directors of the condo association has to approve the project and the application for state funds at a regular annual or a special meeting, but all unit owners have to unanimously agree to the project, and the Board of Directors has to provide written evidence of such unanimous agreement to the state administrators.
That’s why “it remains to be seen if this will be a real benefit,” says Victor Dalrymple, an insurance broker based in Melbourne who advises many condominium associations in the area. He said that in his experience, it is extremely difficult in practice to get 100 percent of owners to agree on anything, let alone on spending any money via special assessments.
Dalrymple also noted that other skeptics have said that $30 million isn’t a lot of money, and that the money will probably be gone before most associations will have figured out the application process, with the money flying out almost as fast as Taylor Swift concert tickets.
The state administrators have also warned that the actual availability of funds is subject to annual legislative appropriations. Nevertheless, Dalrymple says he will advise his condo association clients to prepare applications for grants for useful hardening projects to further protect their buildings.
