Two condos, three buildings apart on the same stretch of Camino Real. Same square footage, same view corridor toward the Intracoastal, same list price down to the thousand. A buyer touring both this month would be forgiven for treating them as interchangeable.
They are not. One association finished its Structural Integrity Reserve Study before the December 31, 2025 deadline and has a funded reserve schedule sitting behind a working members-only website. The other is still catching up, and catching up in a 1980s coastal building usually means a bill. Nothing on either listing sheet tells you which is which. The gap between them will not show up until someone actually looks, and as of this year, looking has gotten a lot easier.
What actually changed on January 1
Florida's post-Surfside condo reforms arrived in stages: SB 4-D in 2022 created the Structural Integrity Reserve Study requirement for buildings three stories or taller, HB 913 pushed the completion deadline from the end of 2024 to the end of 2025, and HB 1021, passed back in 2024, quietly did something that took full effect only this January. It dropped the threshold for a mandatory online disclosure portal from 150 units down to 25.
That single number change swept in most of Boca Raton's condo stock. A boutique 30- or 40-unit building that had no digital disclosure obligation whatsoever a year ago is now required to run a password-protected website or app containing its governing documents, current budget, financial reports, meeting minutes, insurance policies, contracts, and the SIRS report itself. Boards that miss the deadline face civil penalties and owner enforcement action, according to the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation's own guidance on the reforms.
Put the two deadlines next to each other and the picture sharpens. Every qualifying association had to finish its structural reserve study by December 31, 2025, and by January 1, 2026, most of them also had to post the results somewhere a member could log in and read them. For the first time, the single fact that determines a condo's real cost of ownership, whether the building's reserves are actually funded, sits in a place a careful buyer can check before writing an offer instead of waiting for the estoppel letter to arrive fourteen days into contract.
This is already playing out inside Boca buildings
This is not a hypothetical compliance exercise happening somewhere else in the state. Barwood Condominium Associations in Boca Raton has already engaged a structural engineering firm to run milestone inspections across its properties to meet both the state statute and the city's own building guidelines, the kind of work that produces exactly the documentation the new portal law now requires associations to post.
Boca's exposure here is real but not uniform. A meaningful share of the city's mid-rise condo stock dates to the 1980s, the same construction era driving special assessments across South Florida's coastline. Industry data comparing coastal Palm Beach County to Miami-Dade and Broward suggests Boca's buildings run slightly younger on average and sit a bit more inland than the oceanfront towers generating the state's largest assessment headlines, which tempers the risk without eliminating it. A three-story building a mile from the water still needs a completed SIRS. A twelve-story tower two blocks off A1A needs one more urgently.
Statewide, the assessments tied to this wave of structural catch-up have landed in a wide range depending on what the engineering reports found and how long a board deferred maintenance before the law forced the issue.
| What triggers the bill | What it covers | Typical range reported statewide, 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Structural catch-up (SIRS-driven) | Roof, load-bearing structure, waterproofing, plumbing, electrical | Roughly $30,000 to $200,000+ per unit in older buildings |
| Insurance shortfall | Master policy premium increases boards under-budgeted | Often smaller per instance, but recurring, sometimes doubling monthly dues within two years |
These figures come from tracking across South Florida's older coastal condo stock generally, not a Boca-specific tally, and they are exactly why the building matters more than the unit. A buyer comparing two listings at the same price point is really comparing two different exposure profiles, and until this year there was no clean way to see that difference before signing a contract.
Why the price data already shows two markets, not one
Look at the headline number and Boca's condo market looks soft. The median list price for condos and co-ops in the city ran $349,950 in August 2026, down from $359,250 the same month a year earlier, a decline of roughly 2.6 percent. Read as a single trend line, that looks like broad cooling.
It is not broad. Our own analysis of the luxury segment earlier this year found single-family luxury homes moving at a median 54 days on market with sale-to-list ratios near 94 to 95 percent when priced correctly, while attached luxury product, condos and townhomes, ran slower, often 70 days or more, with buyers pricing in caution around building reserves, assessments, and insurance before they ever got to negotiating the unit itself.
That is the bifurcation the SIRS and portal deadlines created. Buildings that finished their structural studies, funded their reserves, and stood up a working portal are trading close to where they always did, because a buyer who checks the documents finds nothing alarming. Buildings still working through deferred maintenance are absorbing both the coming assessment and a price discount for the uncertainty, because sophisticated buyers now have a way to spot the difference before they fall in love with the unit. The median blends both stories into one softer number, which is exactly why the median is the wrong thing to anchor a decision to this year.
The upside nobody mentions: compliant buildings are getting cheaper to insure
Compliance is not only a way to avoid a bad surprise. It is turning into a pricing advantage on the insurance side, which flows straight into monthly dues. Florida's private insurance market has stabilized enough since the 2022 and 2023 reforms that well-mitigated small associations, the 25 to 50 unit range that describes much of Boca's boutique inventory, have become the segment carriers are actively competing to write. A clean claims history, impact-rated openings, and a documented reserve plan can move a building off Citizens Property Insurance and into a private-market quote meaningfully below the state-backed rate.
A building that did the SIRS work early, funded its reserves on schedule, and can show a clean maintenance record is not just avoiding an assessment. It may be paying less for its master policy than a comparable building next door that let the same paperwork slide, and that gap shows up in the monthly HOA line every buyer already checks.
What to actually ask for before you schedule a showing
The documents that used to surface late in a transaction are now supposed to exist in an organized, dated form from day one. Use that.
- Ask your agent to request portal access, or specific document excerpts, from the listing side before you tour, not after you write an offer.
- Confirm the SIRS has a completion date on it, not just a line in board minutes saying one was ordered.
- Read the baseline funding plan the study produced, not just its existence. A study that recommends a schedule the board hasn't adopted is a warning sign, not a clean bill of health.
- Ask when the master policy last renewed and whether the premium moved. A recent jump the board hasn't yet passed through to dues is often the next assessment in waiting.
- If a building with 25 or more units has no working portal at all, treat that gap itself as information. A board out of compliance with the disclosure law in January 2026 is not a board you want discovering a structural surprise on your watch.
None of this replaces a proper attorney review of the condo documents once you're under contract. It does mean the first, cheapest filter, the one that used to require an estoppel letter and a fourteen-day wait, can now happen in the ten minutes before you get out of the car.
FAQ
Does the 25-unit portal rule really apply to a small boutique building? Yes. HB 1021 lowered the threshold from 150 units to 25, effective January 1, 2026. A building with 25 or more units, regardless of height, is now required to maintain a password-protected website or app with governing documents, budgets, and reserve study information.
What if a seller or listing agent won't share portal access before an offer? That reluctance is itself useful information. It does not always mean something is wrong, but a compliant, organized association usually has no reason to slow-walk a request that state law already requires it to accommodate for its own members.
Does a completed SIRS mean no future assessment is possible? No. A SIRS sets a funding schedule based on current conditions and projected useful life. It reduces the odds of an emergency, unplanned assessment, but a hurricane, an unexpected failure, or a board that later underfunds the plan can still produce one. What it buys a buyer is visibility into the plan, not a guarantee against every future cost.
The building matters more than the view this year, and for the first time, you can check the building before you fall for the view. If you are comparing Boca Raton condos and want someone who reads the reserve study before the offer instead of after, Vlasek Real Estate Group will walk the portal and the paperwork with you. Request Your Personalized Consultation.
