Florida SIRS Deadline: What Your Condo Board Must Finish Before December 31, 2026

Your board has an engineer's proposal for a reserve study sitting in a folder since spring, the number looked high, and the vote kept getting tabled. If your building is a Florida condominium three stories or taller, that folder is now a compliance problem with about two months left on it. This article covers Florida only, under Chapter 718 and section 553.899 of the Florida Statutes.

The deadline that actually applies to your building

December 31, 2026 is the hard outer limit for the first structural integrity reserve study of a building whose association was already under owner control in 2022. Section 718.112(2)(g)7 lays it out in three steps. Associations that existed on or before July 1, 2022 and are controlled by unit owners rather than the developer had to complete a SIRS by December 31, 2025, for each building three stories or higher. An association required to complete a milestone inspection under section 553.899 on or before December 31, 2026 may complete the study simultaneously with that inspection. Then the statute closes the door: in no event may the study be completed after December 31, 2026. Newer associations are not on this clock, but they still owe a study at least every 10 years under subparagraph 1.

The order of those sentences decides which position your board is in. Either your milestone inspection was due on or before the end of this year, and you have until December 31, or it was not, and your deadline passed last December. Being late does not move the backstop.

Subparagraph 5 puts some buildings outside the requirement: anything under three stories, single-family through four-family dwellings with three or fewer habitable stories above ground, and any portion of a building the association does not maintain.

What the study has to contain

A structural integrity reserve study is a visual inspection of the condominium property that assigns a remaining useful life and a replacement cost to the components keeping the building standing. The statute names eight:

• Roof.
• Structure, including load-bearing walls and the primary structural members defined in section 627.706.
• Fireproofing and fire protection systems.
• Plumbing.
• Electrical systems.
• Waterproofing and exterior painting.
• Windows and exterior doors.
• Any other item whose deferred maintenance or replacement cost exceeds $25,000, or the inflation-adjusted figure the division sets, where failing to maintain it would damage the items above.

The output matters as much as the inspection. Subparagraph 4 requires the study to state each item's estimated remaining useful life and its estimated replacement cost or deferred maintenance expense, and to provide a funding plan with a recommended annual amount that reaches that cost by the end of the item's useful life. The plan must rest on a baseline funding goal, meaning reserve cash stays above zero in every budget year. A report that stops at "the roof has eight years left" is not a study the statute accepts. If your board is still untangling this from the money itself, the difference between a reserve study and a reserve fund is worth twenty minutes before your next meeting.

One piece of relief is built in: the study may recommend no replacement reserves for an item with more than 25 years of estimated useful life left, only a deferred maintenance amount.

Who is allowed to perform it

Only three categories of professional may perform or verify a SIRS in Florida: an engineer licensed under chapter 471, an architect licensed under chapter 481, or a person certified as a reserve specialist or professional reserve analyst by the Community Associations Institute or the Association of Professional Reserve Analysts. Your property manager cannot produce one, and neither can a board member with a spreadsheet.

Conflict rules apply while you collect bids. Anyone bidding to perform the study must disclose in writing any intent to bid on the repair work it recommends, and the services contract is voidable without that disclosure.

How the milestone inspection fits

The milestone inspection is a separate structural inspection under section 553.899, and its timing decides whether your board still has the 2026 window. A building three habitable stories or more under condominium or cooperative ownership must have one by December 31 of the year it reaches 30 years of age, measured from the certificate of occupancy date, and every 10 years after. The 25-year version people repeat at meetings is real but conditional: the statute lets the local enforcement agency determine that local circumstances, including proximity to salt water, require inspection at 25 years instead. That is a local determination, not a statewide coastal rule, so the answer comes from your building department.

Two provisions let the inspections lean on each other. A milestone or similar local inspection performed within the past 5 years, if it meets the SIRS requirements, may replace the visual inspection portion of the study. And once a milestone inspection is done, subparagraph 9 lets you delay a required SIRS for the two consecutive budget years immediately following it, so the money goes first to the repairs it found.

Owners can no longer vote the reserves down

For a budget adopted on or after December 31, 2024, the members of a unit-owner-controlled association that must obtain a SIRS may not vote to provide no reserves, or less reserves, for the items the study covers. That single change reshaped Florida budget meetings. The waiver vote survives for other reserve items, but not for the structural list in paragraph (g), where the amounts must follow the most recent study.

You do still choose the funding method. Those reserves may be funded by regular assessments, special assessments, lines of credit, or loans, and the last three need approval by a majority of the total voting interests. If that vote is coming, read when the board can levy a special assessment and when owners get a vote before the notice goes out. Boards lose these votes on communication more often than on arithmetic, which is why explaining a dues increase before owners hear bad news is part of the compliance work and not separate from it.

One temporary pause survives, and it is not a waiver. For a budget adopted on or before December 31, 2028, an association that completed a milestone inspection within the previous 2 calendar years may pause or reduce reserve funding for up to two consecutive annual budgets to fund that inspection's repairs, with approval of a majority of the total voting interests and a SIRS performed before contributions resume.

The 45-day clock most boards miss

Finishing the study does not end the obligation, because two 45-day clocks start when the report lands. Within 45 days of receiving it, the association must distribute a copy to each unit owner or deliver notice that it is available for inspection and copying on written request. Within those same 45 days, it must give the division a statement that the study was completed and made available to owners, on the form posted on the division's website.

Three smaller duties ride along. An officer or director must sign an affidavit acknowledging receipt of the study. The study becomes an official record and must be kept at least 15 years under section 718.111(12). And a willful, knowing failure to complete a required SIRS breaches the officers' and directors' fiduciary relationship to the unit owners. Since owners can request that record, know what your association must produce and what it can withhold before the first request arrives.

What to do in the next sixty days

1. Pull the certificate of occupancy date and confirm with your building department which milestone year applies, 30 or 25.
2. Decide which position you are in: coordinating with a 2026 milestone inspection, or already past the 2025 deadline.
3. Collect bids from licensed engineers, licensed architects, or CAI or APRA certified reserve professionals, with conflict disclosures in writing.
4. Ask each bidder whether an inspection from the past 5 years can replace the visual inspection portion.
5. Calendar both 45-day clocks, owner distribution and the division statement.
6. Build next year's budget from the study's funding plan and schedule any assessment or loan vote early.
7. File the study with a 15-year retention note and get the officer affidavit signed.

Florida law as described here is current as of October 2026. Your state statute and your association's governing documents control, so read both with counsel before your board acts.

Deadlines like this one fail on handoffs, not on engineering. Keeping the compliance calendar, the owner notices and the document trail in one place turns a 45-day clock into a task with an owner and a date instead of an email someone meant to send. That is the part Noque handles for boards and management companies. If you want to see how it would work for your building, talk to a specialist.