At approximately 1:22 a.m. EDT on June 24, 2021, Champlain Towers South — a twelve-story, 136-unit beachfront condominium completed in 1981 at 8777 Collins Avenue in Surfside, Miami-Dade County — partially collapsed. Ninety-eight people died. Eleven survived with non-fatal injuries. The building's sister towers, Champlain Towers North (1982) and Champlain Towers East (1994), still stand. Five years later, the National Institute of Standards and Technology has identified the pool deck as the most likely origin of the failure, the Florida Legislature has passed four waves of structural and governance reform, the Dubai-based developer that paid $120 million for the site has yet to sell a single unit in the replacement tower, and not a single individual has been criminally charged.
This is a comprehensive look at what has actually changed in Florida community-association law and operations in the five years since Surfside — and what remains structurally unresolved as the anniversary approaches. Pair this with our Florida condo SIRS reserve funding guide, our milestone inspection guide, our Fannie Mae blacklist guide, our developer takeover guide, and our 2026 legislative session recap.
This article is general information for Florida community-association board members, owners, and residents. It is not legal advice. The post-Surfside legal and regulatory landscape continues to shift; verify any specific provision at flsenate.gov or with a licensed Florida community-association attorney before relying on it.
What NIST found, five years on
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has been investigating Champlain Towers South under the National Construction Safety Team Act since 2021. NIST announced in September 2025 that technical work was complete and a draft summary report plus six technical reports would be released in Spring 2026. Lead investigators Judith Mitrani-Reiser and Glenn Bell have communicated preliminary findings through 2024 and 2025 updates.
The most significant finding is that the collapse did not start in the tower. WLRN reported NIST's revised timeline: the pool deck and street-level parking deck failed at least seven minutes before the tower came down. The initial failure point was a slab-column connection in the pool deck. From there, NIST has identified a cluster of contributing factors:
- The original 1981 structural design did not meet applicable building code requirements
- Misplaced steel reinforcement in the as-built construction
- Heavy planters added later, not in the original design
- Sand and pavers added during a pool-deck rehabilitation decades earlier, contributing additional load
- Long-term corrosion of reinforcing steel from chloride and saltwater intrusion through failed waterproofing membranes
- Distress indicators in the weeks before collapse: dislodged sliding glass doors, horizontal cracks in planter walls, gates that wouldn't open due to vertical shifting, ceiling water leaks intensifying in the hours before collapse
Mitrani-Reiser, in NIST's September 2025 update, summarized the finding: "This tragic event has revealed flaws in our systems, and quality is at the heart of it." Bell stated: "It is more likely that the failure started in a pool deck slab-column connection." NIST has signaled forthcoming code recommendations covering mandatory special inspections for quality control, comprehensive records retention beyond initial drawings, and enhanced quality assurance during construction. The full final report and recommendations are expected in 2026.
The four legislative waves
Florida's post-Surfside legislative response has come in four distinct waves over four legislative sessions, each progressively tighter on requirements then progressively softer on enforcement and timelines as the financial pain on owners became visible.
Wave one — SB 4-D (2022). Signed by Governor DeSantis on May 26, 2022, eleven months after the collapse. Created mandatory milestone inspections under F.S. 553.899 for residential condo and cooperative buildings three or more habitable stories tall, with a 30-year statewide trigger and a 25-year trigger within three miles of the coast. Required Structural Integrity Reserve Studies (SIRS) every ten years and full reserve funding effective January 1, 2025. The law was the first major rewrite of Florida condo structural-safety regulation since the original Condominium Act.
Wave two — SB 154 (2023). Signed June 9, 2023. The "glitch bill" that adjusted SB 4-D's edges. Clarified that the inspection regime applied to residential condos only (not commercial), narrowed the coastal trigger from automatic three-mile to discretionary by local building official, allowed milestone inspection by a team of professionals with an engineer or architect responsible, removed floor and foundation from the items required to be reserved, added exterior doors to the reserve list, and increased the member-vote threshold for reserve waivers from a majority of quorum to a majority of total membership. The pattern of subsequent legislative softening had begun.
Wave three — HB 1021 and HB 1203 (2024). Both signed June 14, 2024 and effective July 1, 2024. HB 1021 reformed the Condominium Act with criminal penalties for repeated records violations (second-degree misdemeanor with intent to harm), accounting-record destruction (first-degree misdemeanor), and kickbacks (third-degree felony). The 25-unit website mandate for condo records took effect January 1, 2026. HB 1203 reformed Chapter 720 (HOAs) with a parallel criminal penalty regime, mandatory director education (4 hours per year, 8 for HOAs with 2,500 or more parcels), and a 100-parcel digital records portal effective January 1, 2025. Haber Law's white paper covers HB 1021 in detail.
Wave four — HB 913 (2025). Signed by Governor DeSantis on June 23, 2025 and effective July 1, 2025. House vote 112-0; Senate vote 37-0. The bill summary describes the substantial softening of Wave 1 requirements as financial pain on owners became visible: the SIRS deadline was extended from December 31, 2024 to December 31, 2025; associations whose budgets were adopted by December 31, 2028 and who completed milestone inspections in the previous two years could pause or reduce reserve contributions for up to two consecutive annual budgets by majority owner approval; the reserve threshold was raised from $10,000 to $25,000 (with annual inflation adjustment); reserve funding alternatives were expanded to include loans and lines of credit; mandatory online state registration for all condo associations took effect October 1, 2025; and the document review window for resale transactions was extended from three to seven days. Becker shareholder Joseph E. Adams's News-Press column walks through the changes.
The reform that died — HB 657 (2026). Sponsored by Rep. Juan Carlos Porras (R-Miami) with twelve co-introducers, HB 657 would have created a state-funded community-association court program in three judicial circuits, established a statutory mechanism for HOA dissolution, mandated Kaufman language in governing documents formed on or after July 1, 2026, eliminated pre-suit mediation for community-association disputes, and added explicit fiduciary-duty provisions for directors. The bill passed the House 108-2 on March 5, 2026 and died in Senate Rules on March 13, 2026 when the regular session adjourned without a hearing. It was the most ambitious community-association reform bill to clear either chamber since SB 4-D and is widely expected to refile in 2027.
The four-wave pattern is the underlying story. Florida built a strict post-Surfside framework in 2022. As reserve-study findings began producing six-figure special assessments in 2023 and 2024, the legislature progressively softened reserve requirements, extended SIRS deadlines, and added flexibility through loans and pauses. By the fourth wave in 2025, the softening exceeded the original tightening on the reserves dimension. The criminal-penalty and transparency provisions in Wave 3 remain in force.
What boards are doing differently
Board operations across Florida have changed materially in five years. The most visible operational shifts:
- Milestone inspections. Buildings reaching 30 years (or 25 in coastal-trigger jurisdictions) before July 1, 2022 had to complete inspection by December 31, 2024. Buildings reaching the threshold between July 1, 2022 and December 31, 2024 had to inspect by December 31, 2025. Compliance is tracked at the local building-official level, with statewide reporting to DBPR by October 1, 2025 under HB 913
- Structural Integrity Reserve Studies. Now standard practice for buildings three stories and up. Boards are commissioning the studies from licensed engineers and reserving for the eight required component categories (roof, plumbing, structural, electrical, waterproofing, HVAC, exterior painting, exterior doors after SB 154)
- Records portals. Condos with 25 or more units must post records on a website or mobile app effective January 1, 2026 under HB 1021. HOAs with 100 or more parcels must do so effective January 1, 2025 under HB 1203. The records list is extensive: governing documents, budgets, financial reports, meeting notices and agendas, at least 12 months of meeting minutes, current insurance policies, contracts, bids, director certifications, and conflict-of-interest disclosures
- Director education. Newly elected and appointed HOA directors must complete state-approved curriculum within 90 days, plus 4 hours of continuing education annually (8 hours if the HOA has 2,500 or more parcels)
- Mandatory online registration. All Florida condo associations must register annually with the Division of Condominiums effective October 1, 2025
- Electronic voting expansion. Virtual attendance now counts toward quorum; e-voting must be enabled within 21 days if 25 percent of owners request
Boards that complied with the original SB 4-D requirements before HB 913's softening are generally in stronger structural and financial positions than boards that delayed. The post-Surfside pattern in operation: the buildings that took the law seriously in 2022 are not the buildings facing the worst special-assessment crises in 2026.
The financial fallout
The cost of post-Surfside compliance has produced a documented financial-distress pattern across older Florida condos. The named examples that have driven national reporting:
- Cricket Club, North Miami — proposed $30 million special assessment, equating to over $134,000 per unit for roof replacement and façade waterproofing
- Mediterranean Village, Aventura — assessments up to $400,000 per unit reported
- Surfside South Club, Ormond Beach — assessments over $100,000 per unit to fully fund reserves
- Whitehall Condominiums of Palm Beach Lakes — the board encouraged owners to waive rather than fund SIRS reserves; one owner reported to WLRN an estimated $800-per-month assessment increase
The mortgage-market fallout is documented in the Fannie Mae ineligibility list. As of March 11, 2025 (the most recent verifiable count from Allcock Marcus's confidentially-obtained dataset), 1,438 Florida buildings were ineligible for conventional Fannie Mae financing — with 696 in the Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach tri-county area combined. South Florida's count more than doubled in the two years preceding. Mortgage Professional America's April 2025 reporting documented the trend.
The price impact has been measurable. According to ISG World data cited by Newsweek, properties over 30 years old have lost approximately 22 percent of value over a two-year window. Florida Realtors data shows statewide condo prices declining monthly since July 2024. South Florida condo sales fell roughly 25 percent year-over-year in mid-2025, with median time-to-close exceeding 100 days across Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach.
The financial pressure has produced a parallel story in insurance. Master-policy premiums in many older condos have risen sharply since 2022. Fannie Mae Lender Letter LL-2026-03, issued March 18, 2026, will impose a $50,000 per-unit master-policy deductible cap mandatory for loan applications dated July 1, 2026 or later — effectively forcing buildings with high deductibles to either reduce them or accept ineligibility for conventional financing. The federal mortgage market is, in 2026, tightening condo rules at the same moment Florida's legislature has been softening reserve rules. The two trends are in tension.
The Biscayne 21 counter-current
While the Florida Legislature has progressively softened structural and reserve requirements, Florida's appellate courts have moved in the opposite direction on owner-protection. The clearest example is Avila v. Biscayne 21 Condominium, Inc., Case No. 3D23-1616, decided by the Third District Court of Appeal with a revised opinion on July 10, 2025.
Two Roads Development acquired 183 of 192 units in the 1964 Biscayne 21 building in 2022 for $150 million, planning to demolish for the Edition Residences luxury tower. The developer-controlled board amended the declaration in August 2022 to lower the termination threshold from 100 percent unanimous to 80 percent. The Third DCA reversed the trial court's denial of the holdouts' injunction and held that the original unanimous-consent requirement was a contractual right that could not be unilaterally amended — "absent Kaufman language, an amendment to the Condominium Act will not have retroactive application to a condominium's Declaration if it impairs contractual obligations," per Haber Law's Jonathan Goldstein and Christina Warhola in their July 2025 analysis.
The Florida Supreme Court denied review on October 14, 2025 (Case No. SC2025-1169), leaving the Third District ruling intact as binding precedent across Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties. On January 13, 2026, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Thomas Rebull ordered Two Roads to restore the building to May 2023 condition after the developer had stripped windows, plumbing, and HVAC during pre-demolition activities. Restoration cost estimates ranged from approximately $61 million per Two Roads's own court filings to roughly $65 million per a separate Bank OZK report. The Fourth District Court of Appeal reached the opposite result on near-identical facts in Fellman v. Mission Viejo Condominium Association, 4D22-1260, in April 2023, creating a district split the Florida Supreme Court has declined to resolve.
The five-year pattern: the legislature softens financial requirements; the courts harden ownership protections. Florida's post-Surfside legal landscape is being shaped by two opposing forces simultaneously.
The criminal accountability gap
Five years on, no individual has been criminally charged in connection with the Champlain Towers South collapse. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle convened a grand jury after the collapse, and the grand jury issued a 2024 report focused on prevention recommendations rather than charging individuals. The State Attorney's Office has stated publicly that it would await NIST's findings before deciding on criminal liability.
Engineering News-Record reported in late 2025 that NIST has begun transferring evidence to local police for the parallel criminal inquiry — signaling that 2026 or 2027 is the window in which criminal exposure could finally crystallize. Legal analysts have noted that manslaughter prosecution would face a high legal bar under Florida law, given the difficulty of attributing the collapse to specific decisions made decades after the building's 1981 completion. The accountability question, like the engineering report, remains formally open.
The Damac Delmore bookend
The most visible answer to "what has Florida built on the Surfside site?" is, five years on, "nothing yet." Damac Properties, the Dubai-based developer, paid $120 million for the 1.8-acre site in 2022. The replacement project, named The Delmore, is a 12-story, 37-unit luxury condominium designed by Zaha Hadid Architects with units priced from $15 million, an average of $35-$40 million, and penthouses over $150 million.
Sales launched in early 2025. As of April 2026, no units have sold. Damac Senior Vice President of Development Jeffrey Rossely told The Real Deal that the January 2025 launch "was premature" and that the company plans to relaunch sales toward the end of 2026 after resubmitting the master building permit, securing insurance, and finalizing a general contractor. Expected completion has shifted to 2029. Damac is reportedly in joint-venture talks with other developers.
The zero-sales status is itself the bookend to the five-year story. A Dubai investor paid $120 million for one of the most architecturally ambitious replacement projects in Florida; commissioned a Zaha Hadid Architects design; priced units at $15 million and up; and has not closed a single transaction in fifteen months on the market. The post-Surfside reality is that even glamorous redevelopment of the site itself is struggling.
Try Mosaic alongside your current software. No Risk!
- Keep yourself compliant on every statute change
- Keep your board compliant across every workflow
- Keep your HOA compliant and your owners happy
The memorial
The Town of Surfside has approved a permanent memorial design for the 98 victims. The conceptual design centers on a "wall of water" feature with an exhibition of materials recovered from the collapsed building, sited at the end of 88th Street and Collins Avenue across from the original site. Recovered materials are currently held at Veterans Park. The town held a Moment of Reflection event on February 4, 2026 marking the transition into the next phase. An annual Lighting of the Torch ceremony at 1:22 a.m. on June 24 reads the names of all 98 victims.
The design has been controversial. In April 2025, the city's planning and zoning board criticized the design publicly, with one member calling it "ugly as hell" and the chair later apologizing. Family member Martin Langesfeld defended the family-led design committee process. Tentative groundbreaking was set for early 2026. The dedication date has not been finalized as of this writing.
What comes next
Several inflection points are scheduled for 2026 and 2027:
- Spring 2026: NIST releases the draft summary report and six technical reports. Final code recommendations follow
- June 24, 2026: Five-year anniversary observances at Surfside
- July 1, 2026: Fannie Mae LL-2026-03 $50,000 per-unit master-policy deductible cap becomes mandatory for loan applications
- August 3, 2026: Fannie Mae retires the Limited Review process for established condo projects
- December 31, 2026: Extended SIRS completion deadline for buildings whose milestone inspections are due in this window
- January 4, 2027: Fannie Mae 15 percent reserve allocation minimum becomes mandatory
- 2027 regular session: Rep. Porras has signaled HB 657 will refile. The state-funded condo court, HOA dissolution mechanism, and Kaufman-language requirement are likely vehicles
- Late 2026: Damac Delmore sales relaunch (planned)
- Through 2027: Criminal accountability question resolves one way or the other once NIST report is final and Miami-Dade State Attorney completes review
The five-year arc is most accurately described as incomplete. Florida has built a regulatory framework that is more rigorous than what existed on June 23, 2021, but it has also walked back parts of that framework as financial reality landed on owners. The mortgage market has tightened where the legislature loosened. The courts have hardened where the legislature softened. And the physical site of the collapse, five years later, hosts neither a memorial nor a building — just a $120 million plot of beachfront waiting for the next attempt.
How Mosaic supports post-Surfside compliance
The compliance burden on Florida condo and HOA boards has grown materially since 2022. SIRS reports must be tracked. Milestone inspections must be coordinated with reserve studies. The 25-unit website mandate requires specific record types posted within specific time windows. Director education must be documented. Records access must be available within 10 business days of request. Mosaic's platform is built around the documentation infrastructure post-Surfside Florida boards now need:
- SIRS and milestone inspection tracking. Reports stored, recommendations searchable, remediation status visible to the board and (where required) to owners
- Reserve funding ratio monitoring. Current funding level, recommended allocation, and the gap between them — visible at a glance
- Records portal compliance. The 25-unit condo website mandate (effective Jan 1, 2026) and 100-parcel HOA digital repository (effective Jan 1, 2025) require specific record types posted within specific windows. Mosaic generates the portal automatically from the underlying documents
- Director education tracking. Course completion records, due dates, certifications — preserved for HB 1203 compliance audits
- Owner ledger transparency. Every unit's payment history visible to the unit owner, with statutory payment-application order applied
- 24/7 owner chat. Resident questions about reserves, milestone inspections, special assessments, and post-Surfside compliance answered immediately from the actual association documents with source citations
Frequently asked questions
NIST's preliminary findings, communicated through 2025 updates by lead investigators Judith Mitrani-Reiser and Glenn Bell, identified the pool deck as the most likely origin of the collapse. The pool deck and street-level parking deck failed at least seven minutes before the tower itself came down. The initial failure point was a slab-column connection in the pool deck. Contributing factors NIST has cited include an original structural design that did not meet applicable building code requirements, misplaced steel reinforcement, heavy planters not in the original design, sand and pavers added during pool-deck rehabilitation decades earlier, and long-term corrosion of reinforcing steel from saltwater intrusion through failed waterproofing membranes. NIST announced in September 2025 that technical work was complete and that a draft summary report plus six technical reports would be released in Spring 2026. The agency has begun transferring evidence to local police for the parallel criminal inquiry by the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office.
Approximately $1.02 billion, approved by Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Michael Hanzman on June 23, 2022 — one day before the first anniversary of the collapse. The largest single contributor was Securitas Security Services USA at $517.5 million. Other major contributions included $157 million from John Moriarty & Associates of Florida (the general contractor for the adjacent Eighty Seven Park development), approximately $400 million combined from Eighty Seven Park insurers, $25.7 million from NV5 (the geotechnical engineer), $25 million from Western Waterproofing, $16.5 million from Stantec's insurer, and $16 million from Morabito Consultants. Lead plaintiffs' counsel was attorney Harley S. Tropin. Court-appointed receiver Michael Goldberg confirmed no objections were filed and no claimants opted out. The bulk of the funds went to families who lost loved ones, with approximately $96 million earmarked for unit owners and approximately $100 million for legal fees.
Damac Properties, the Dubai-based developer, purchased the 1.8-acre site for $120 million in 2022. The replacement project, named The Delmore, is a 12-story, 37-unit luxury condominium designed by Zaha Hadid Architects with units priced from $15 million, an average of $35 million to $40 million, and penthouses over $150 million. Sales launched in early 2025. As of April 2026, no units have sold. Damac Senior Vice President of Development Jeffrey Rossely told The Real Deal in April 2026 that the January 2025 launch was premature, and the company plans to relaunch sales toward the end of 2026 after resubmitting the master building permit, securing insurance, and finalizing a general contractor. Expected completion is 2029. Damac is in joint-venture talks with other developers.
First wave: SB 4-D (2022), signed May 26, 2022, created mandatory milestone inspections under F.S. 553.899 and required Structural Integrity Reserve Studies (SIRS) every ten years for buildings three or more habitable stories. Second wave: SB 154 (2023), the so-called glitch bill, signed June 9, 2023, clarified that requirements applied to residential buildings only, narrowed the coastal trigger to within three miles of a coastline, and adjusted the items required to be reserved. Third wave: HB 1021 (condos) and HB 1203 (HOAs), both effective July 1, 2024, added digital records portals (25-unit threshold for condos effective January 1, 2026; 100-parcel threshold for HOAs effective January 1, 2025), mandatory director education, and criminal penalties for board misconduct. Fourth wave: HB 913 (2025), signed June 23, 2025, materially softened reserve requirements — extending the SIRS deadline to December 31, 2025, allowing a two-year reserve pause for milestone-coordinated repairs, raising the reserve threshold from $10,000 to $25,000, and adding a mandatory state registration requirement for condo associations effective October 1, 2025. HB 657 (2026), which would have added a state-funded condo court and an HOA dissolution mechanism, passed the House 108-2 on March 5, 2026 but died in Senate Rules on March 13, 2026.
Not as of May 2026. Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle convened a grand jury after the collapse, and the grand jury issued a 2024 report focused on prevention recommendations rather than charging individuals. The State Attorney's Office has stated it would await NIST's findings before deciding on criminal liability. NIST began transferring evidence to local police in late 2025 or early 2026, signaling that criminal exposure could crystallize during 2026 or 2027 once the final NIST report is released. Legal analysts have noted that manslaughter prosecution would face a high legal bar under Florida law, given the difficulty of attributing the collapse to specific individuals' decisions decades after the building's 1981 completion. The criminal accountability question remains open five years on.
Share this guide
