The hardest part of a water loss is the first hour, when four owners want an answer that nobody can give yet. A pipe fails on the eighth floor. Four units are wet. The pressure to say something definitive is enormous, and whatever gets said — "that's the upstairs owner," "call your own carrier" — tends to stick for the next six months. Whether the association pays depends on how the adjuster characterises the loss, which has not happened yet. So the useful skill here is holding the line on sequence.
General information for Florida communities, not legal advice. Your declaration and master policy control, and every loss turns on its own facts.
The first hour: what to say instead
Whether the association pays depends on how your insurer characterises the loss. That decision has not been made yet while you are standing in the hallway. So say the true thing:
"We have opened a claim. Until the adjuster looks at it, I can't tell you who pays for what. Today I need three things from you: photos of everything before it dries, the name of your insurer, and your loss assessment limit."
That commits you to nothing, gives the owner a job, and gets you the evidence you will need. Everything below is what happens next.
Two questions decide almost every leak
Was it sudden? Florida sends the repair of association-insured property to the association as a shared expense when the damage comes from a sudden, accidental event the master policy responds to — a burst pipe, a storm-breached roof. Slow seepage, rot and wear usually are not. When it is not sudden, the law steps aside and your declaration decides who fixes what.
Did somebody cause it? An owner picks up whatever insurance does not pay when the damage came from their negligence, their intentional act, or their breaking the rules — including anything done by their family, guests or tenants. The test is whether you can name the act in one sentence. "Ignored two written notices about a weeping supply line" is negligence. "Their twelve-year-old water heater failed" is bad luck. Charging an owner without that sentence is how boards end up in a selective enforcement fight.
Then there is a third question that can override both. Did the owner sit on it? If a loss was known to the owner, or should have been, and they said nothing until after the association's claim closed or was rejected as late, the association owes nothing. The whole repair becomes theirs. It moves more money than the other two combined, and it usually surfaces long after the point where anyone could have acted on it.
Look up your leak
Eight events cover most Florida claims. The middle column is the usual outcome for damage to the building. The right column is what changes it.
| What happened | Who usually pays for the building damage |
|---|---|
| Washing machine hose bursts | Association. Sudden and accidental. Changes if: Owner was warned the hose was weeping and ignored it. |
| Water heater fails | Split. The heater itself is always the owner's. Damage to the building is usually shared. Changes if: A heater long past its service life, with notices on file, starts to look like neglect. |
| A/C condensate line backs up | Usually the owner. It clogs gradually, so it rarely reads as sudden. Changes if: A shared line serving several units is a common element. |
| Toilet overflows, tap left running | Often the owner. Sudden, but usually someone's doing. Changes if: A fill valve that failed without warning is not the same as a guest walking away from a bath. |
| Roof leaks in a storm | Association. Textbook sudden event on association property. Changes if: Little — though the owner still replaces their own flooring and contents. |
| Stack or riser pipe fails in a wall | Association. Shared plumbing is a common element. Changes if: Very little. The cleanest case on this list. |
| Slow drip found months later | Frequently the owner. On two grounds at once. Changes if: It was not sudden, and late reporting can remove the association's obligation entirely. |
| Slab or under-slab leak | Depends on your declaration. Nothing else decides it. Changes if: Whether that plumbing is defined as a common element or part of the unit. |
The pattern: it is not about which unit the water came from. It is about how fast it happened, who caused it, and what your declaration says about the part that failed.
What it costs the owner
When the loss is shared, the deductible is shared too — which sounds like relief until you divide it.
60 units, $25,000 deductible → about $417 per unit. Every owner carrying Florida's minimum $2,000 of loss assessment coverage is fully covered. Nobody calls you.
40 units, $100,000 deductible → about $2,500 per unit. The minimum covers $2,000, so owners with only the floor pay $500 out of pocket — and have nothing left for the next one.
Shares follow the percentages in your declaration, not an automatic even split, and a large deductible may need a special assessment to fund. Owners cannot raise their loss assessment limit after a leak; what counts is the limit in force the day before. The same arithmetic at storm scale is worked through in our post-hurricane claim playbook. If your building is closer to the second example, tell owners to raise that limit — it is cheap, and it is the difference between a shrug and a packed meeting. If the deductible itself is the problem, that is a renewal conversation, not a claim conversation; our renewal playbook covers it.
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Three beliefs that cause most of the fights
"The water came from their unit, so they pay." Nothing makes an owner responsible just because water started above. Responsibility follows fault, not gravity. Florida's Fourth District went further in Universal Property & Casualty Insurance Co. v. Loftus (Fla. 4th DCA 2019): after a leak damaged the unit below, the downstairs insurer sued the upstairs owners over their tenant's negligence, and the court held the Condominium Act does not give one owner a claim against another. It does not make owners untouchable — an ordinary negligence suit is still possible — but the statute is not the weapon.
"The association will put my kitchen back." It will not. The master policy rebuilds the building roughly as originally built, and Florida requires it to exclude personal property, floor, wall and ceiling coverings, electrical fixtures, appliances, water heaters, built-in cabinets, countertops and window treatments. Those are the owner's, and so is anything a previous owner upgraded beyond the developer's standard.
"We opted out of that years ago." This one sits on the board side. An association can vote to replace the statutory allocation with whatever its declaration says — but the opt-out only takes effect when a notice is recorded in the public records. The vote is often remembered accurately while the paperwork has passed through two management companies since. Worth confirming the recording exists before relying on it.
What to do, and what to send
In the first day:
- Stop the water, even if the owner is unreachable. The association has a right of access to a unit when entry is needed to prevent damage. Document it, photograph it, bring a second person.
- Photograph before the dryers arrive. Once remediation starts the evidence is gone.
- Log who reported it and when. That timestamp decides the late-reporting question months later, so keep it with your official records.
- Open the claim now. Waiting to see if it gets big enough is how claims get denied as untimely.
- Keep the rebuild yours. Reconstruction after a loss is the association's to run; an owner can work in their unit only with the board's prior written consent, and you can set conditions on contractor and contract. Out-of-state owners in particular will often line up their own crew in good faith, so it is worth heading off in the first call. Our vendor contracts guide covers running the rebuild properly.
Once a year, send these two paragraphs. They are the cheapest risk management you have.
"If you see water, a stain, a musty smell or a soft spot, tell management the same day, even if it looks minor. Florida law lets the association decline to treat a loss as a shared expense if an owner knew about it and did not report it in time to make a claim. Reporting early costs you nothing. Waiting can make the whole repair yours."
"Your condo policy must include at least $2,000 of loss assessment coverage — the coverage that responds when the association assesses owners for an insurance deductible. Our deductible is $[amount], roughly $[amount] per unit. If that is more than your limit, ask your agent what it costs to raise it."
If you are an HOA townhome
None of the above controls. All of it comes from the Condominium Act, and the homeowners association statute has no equivalent — it says nothing about who repairs damage after a casualty. Your declaration is the entire answer, and declarations differ wildly: one community insures the buildings, the next puts each structure on the owner and covers common area only. Two townhome communities on the same street will reach opposite conclusions about an identical burst pipe. Read the maintenance article and the insurance article together before you answer anyone — if nobody can find them, start with where governing documents actually live. Florida association attorneys raise the same point in their community updates — it is the easiest place to give an answer the documents turn out not to support.
The rules behind this
For checking the work, or handing to counsel.
| Rule | Source |
|---|---|
| Sudden, insured damage to association property is repaired by the association as a common expense. Otherwise the declaration decides. | FS 718.111(11)(j) |
| The master policy must exclude coverings, fixtures, appliances, water heaters, cabinets, countertops and window treatments — and need not repair owner upgrades. | FS 718.111(11)(f) and (n) |
| Owners pay uncovered costs caused by their intentional conduct, negligence or rule violations, including by family, tenants and guests. | FS 718.111(11)(j)1 |
| A loss the owner knew about and reported only after the claim closed is not a common expense. | FS 718.111(11)(j)4 |
| Deductibles are a common expense; the board sets them at a properly noticed meeting. | FS 718.111(11)(j) and (c) |
| Owner policies must carry at least $2,000 of loss assessment coverage, measured the day before the loss. | FS 627.714 |
| The association may enter a unit to prevent damage, and runs reconstruction after a loss. | FS 718.111(5) and (11)(g) |
| An opt-out from the statutory allocation takes effect only when recorded. | FS 718.111(11)(k)–(m) |
| Homeowners associations have no allocation scheme. The declaration governs. | Chapter 720 |
Frequently asked questions
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