Local government agencies are working to reform building inspection requirements after a condo building collapsed in Surfside, Fla., last year, but some engineering experts say the proposed packages aren’t strong enough.
South Florida real estate attorney Bill Sklar on a Florida task force examining condo laws after the Surfside collapse to determine if changes are needed.
Engineers say it can take just 30 years for condominium buildings to reach a point when owners can no longer delay making critical repairs.
In the Miami region, two out of every three condo buildings are more than 30 years old, according to data compiled by real-estate data firm Zillow for The Wall Street Journal. In at least seven other Florida cities, some three-quarters of condo buildings have hit that age.
Many of the aging towers line the beachfront, where salt corrosion and other forces are speeding their decline. That is leaving thousands of buildings saddled with multimillion-dollar repair costs and little notion of how to pay for them.