Property condition assessment software used to be optional for aging buildings, something a buyer commissioned before closing a deal or a proactive HOA board ran on its own schedule. In Florida, it just became mandatory. Buildings turning 30 years old this year have a hard date on the calendar: December 31, 2026. That's the outer limit for a structural milestone inspection and, in most cases, a Structural Integrity Reserve Study (SIRS) done alongside it. Miss it, and a condo or co-op association isn't just facing a fine. Under CS/CS/HB 913, non-compliant buildings can end up with residents ordered out.
That shift is worth understanding even if your properties aren't in Florida, because the reasoning behind it is spreading well beyond the state.
What HB 913 Actually Requires
The current law applies to condominium and cooperative buildings three or more habitable stories tall. A licensed engineer or architect has to perform a structural inspection once the building hits 30 years old (25 years if it sits within three miles of the coast), and again every 10 years after that. Boards responsible for buildings that already crossed that age threshold before the law tightened are working against calendar-year deadlines like the one coming this December.
A related requirement, HB 1021, took effect January 1, 2026, and adds a transparency layer on top: associations with 25 or more units now have to make governing documents, budgets, and reserve studies available to owners through a website or app, not buried in a filing cabinet at the property manager's office.
Put together, the two laws move condo governance from "the board decides when to look closely at the building" to "the state tells you when, and requires you to show your work." That's a meaningfully different posture, and it's the direct result of the 2021 Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside, which killed 98 people and prompted Florida lawmakers to close a gap that had let some aging coastal buildings go decades without a serious structural review.
This Isn't Just a Florida Story Anymore
Roughly 18 states have introduced condo safety or reserve-funding legislation since Surfside, and several have already passed something. Maryland enacted structural safety provisions through House Bill 107. Tennessee amended its title code to require reserve studies. Virginia moved on similar reserve requirements. New York, which has required facade inspections on tall buildings since 1980, has pointed to its existing rules as evidence the concept isn't new, just newly urgent everywhere else.
There's also a push for a shared technical baseline. The International Code Council is developing ICC 1500, a standard for existing building safety inspections covering structural elements, egress, and fire protection systems. The goal is to give jurisdictions outside Florida a template, instead of writing inspection law from scratch the way Florida had to. However that standard lands, the direction is clear. A documented, recurring structural and condition assessment is becoming table stakes for older multifamily buildings, not a discretionary extra a board can defer another budget cycle.
Why "We'll Handle It When the Inspection Is Due" Doesn't Hold Up
A milestone inspection is a point-in-time engineering review, and it should stay that way. Nothing here suggests boards should start second-guessing licensed engineers. But the condition of a building doesn't wait for the ten-year clock. Concrete spalling, rebar corrosion, and waterproofing failures develop gradually between formal inspections. A board with no record of the building's condition in the interim has a much harder time budgeting for the capital repairs a SIRS is supposed to plan for.
That's the practical gap a lot of associations are running into right now. The engineer's milestone report tells you where the building stands on inspection day. It doesn't replace a routine, photo-documented walkthrough of common areas, balconies, and building exteriors that gives a board an ongoing record to work from. That record makes the next reserve study conversation a lot less contentious.
Where Property Condition Assessment Software Fits
None of this replaces the licensed engineer's milestone inspection or a SIRS. What property condition assessment software like SnapInspect supports is the record-keeping that sits around those formal reviews. That means standardized inspection templates aligned to how ASTM's E2018 property condition assessment standard structures a review, dated photos and notes captured on-site rather than typed up from memory later, and a report a board can hand to its engineer, insurer, or reserve-study consultant without digging through years of email threads first.
For a management company running several associations, that consistency matters even more. A building condition survey done the same way across a portfolio, on a set schedule, turns "we think the roof needs attention" into a dated, photo-backed record the board can act on with the next reserve budget, rather than an anecdote raised at a meeting nobody wrote down.
That documentation habit is also changing what the role of association manager actually looks like day to day. It's less "answer complaints" and more "build a defensible paper trail on a building that's aging in real time," a shift longtime association managers are still adjusting to.
A Practical Starting Point for Boards and Management Companies
A few steps make this manageable rather than overwhelming:
- Confirm your building's exact age bracket and coastal-proximity status against Florida's 25-year/30-year thresholds, since the two dates aren't interchangeable.
- Don't wait for the milestone inspection date to start a documented walkthrough routine for common areas, balconies, parking structures, and building exteriors.
- Keep photos and notes dated and organized by area, so they line up cleanly against whatever a SIRS or engineer's report identifies later.
- If you manage multiple associations, standardize the inspection template across properties so a portfolio-level view of condition and risk is actually possible.
- Treat the HB 1021 transparency requirement as a floor, not a ceiling. A board that shares more than the minimum tends to face fewer surprises at annual meetings.
A Quick Disclaimer
This article reflects publicly available information about Florida's HB 913 and HB 1021 as of this writing and is provided for general informational purposes. It isn't legal advice. Confirm your building's specific deadlines, thresholds, and obligations with a licensed engineer, your association's attorney, or the relevant state agency.
Building the Record Before the Law Requires It
Florida didn't invent the property condition assessment. It made a version of it mandatory, with a public deadline, for a specific class of buildings. Roughly 18 other states are now working through their own versions of the same idea. For boards and management companies, the practical response isn't just passing the milestone inspection when it's due. It's building the kind of ongoing, documented condition record that makes every inspection, reserve study, and insurance conversation after that one easier. If you want to see how a structured, photo-based inspection process fits into that, book a demo.
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