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Florida Task Force Makes Recommendations On Condo Safety
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The real property, trust and probate sections of the Florida Bar joined forces to form a task-force of lawyers specializing in condominium and HOA law in order to attempt to prevent events like the collapse of the 12-story Champlain Towers South beachfront condominium from happening in the future. The task force recommendations included assignment of responsibility and scheduling of maintenance, extensive professional inspections and assurance that adequate reserves are put in place to make major safety repairs and other issues in a timely manner to preserve and correct construction defects and problems prior to serious injury and damage occuring.
The task-force's 179-page final report concluded that “The lack of uniform maintenance standards or protocols, and the unguided discretion given to boards of directors to determine when, how, and if life safety inspections should be performed, requires legislative intervention.”
The age of the Champlain Towers, the development which collapsed on June 24th, was 40 years old and found to be in need of major repairs which caused the collapse. The castatrophe led to officials and experts recommendations for effective protocol to ensure other aging structures are properly inspected and maintained to provide a safe living environment for the residents. The task force also noted that 912,376 Florida condo units housing more than 2 million people are at least 30 years old, including more than 105,000 older than 50 years and nearly 328,000 units were built between 40 and 50 years ago, thus calling out a need for the State Legislature to become involved to put in hard guidelines to protect the residence of these buildings.
The report also noted, Florida has more than 1.5 million condo units operated by 27,599 condo associations, and advised more indepth and delineated guidelines for management of all aspects that would ensure building and residents' safety.