Christy Rojas has lived in the same condo unit in Southwest Miami-Dade for about 20 years. She pays over $600 a month in HOA dues and a special assessment, double her mortgage amount, she said.
“There’s always a special assessment,” she said. “You either pay for it, or you sell and leave.”
But leaving for some may not be as easy.
Since the Surfside tragedy, lawmakers in Tallahassee have passed a series of reforms aimed at making buildings safer. Those reforms include requiring that condo associations have enough reserves on hand by the end of this year. That requirement may lead some associations to impose special assessments.
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“They are six figures and they’re growing,” said Craig Studnicky, CEO and broker at ISG World. “I’ve heard as high as $350,000 per unit to fix the structural imperfections in these older buildings, basically rendering that inventory unsellable at the moment. It’s even hard to get a mortgage lender to want to lend on any of those units because of the threat of the special assessments.”
ISG World’s recent analysis of active listings in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties found a surge in the number of condos up for sale, from 8,353 in the second quarter of last year, to over 20,293 a year later. Nearly 90% or 17,796 of those units are in buildings that are over 30 years old.
“I’m very concerned,” Studnicky said. “A lot of these folks that live in these buildings are older, most are retired. They’re on fixed income. They do not want to write those checks for special assessments. They’re hoping that somebody’s going to come in and buy them, but there’s nobody out there that wants to take that risk right now.”
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Studnicky also said a lot of developers and real estate professionals believe the state went a little too far with the milestone rules they’ve put in place for older condos.
“We know that people are hurting,” said State Rep. Alex Rizo (R-Hialeah).
He said there’s been some talk in Tallahassee about finding ways to alleviate the financial burden of some of the reforms on condo owners.
“One possibility is perhaps extending the amount of time to have the fund filled,” he said. “Another one may be perhaps doing sort of a sliding scale to have that fund filled by the age of the property owner.”
But for Christy, time isn’t the real issue.
“The money is the problem,” she said. “If they keep on putting more assessments, what are people gonna do?”
So far, state lawmakers have not developed a specific plan, Rizo said, adding that the governor has expressed he is open to discussing the issue.
If you’re dealing with a special assessment you’re struggling to pay, connect with the NBC6 Responds team by clicking here: https://www.nbcmiami.com/consumer-form/
