In November 2024, the board at 1060 Brickell approved a $21 million special assessment across its two 45-story towers on Brickell Avenue. The buildings had gone up in 2008. Sixteen years old is not old for a Miami high-rise, and residents said so. "I think it's excessive," resident Nima Mahdjour told CBS Miami. "I feel like I'm being milked."
The money was not discretionary. A Structural Integrity Reserve Study had found delaminated stucco, corroded rebar, and a roof nearing the end of its life. The board allocated roughly $7.7 million to Tower II facade restoration, $3.5 million to parking garage and basement repairs, $2.5 million to general conditions, and $1.7 million to rotunda work. Individual owners were told to expect bills ranging from $30,000 to $110,000, some of it due up front. Owners who believed the declaration required a formal vote on any assessment above $50,000 said the board bypassed that step. A recall followed. So did a court order changing the board.
That story is nearly two years old now. It still matters, because a rule that took effect this August changed what a story like it means for anyone trying to buy or sell a Brickell condo today.
Why the Cheapest Fee Was Often the Warning Sign
For most of the 2010s, a building with a low monthly HOA fee looked like a good deal. Buyers compared dues the same way they compared taxes or insurance, treating a lower number as a lower cost of ownership.
That comparison assumed the fee reflected the true cost of running the building. In many older Miami-Dade towers it did not. Florida law let associations vote to waive or underfund reserves for structural components, and boards did this for years to keep monthly dues attractive to buyers and sellers alike. Industry estimates compiled by South Florida HOA attorneys put the average pre-reform Miami condo building at only 40 to 60 percent of the reserve funding state law now requires.
Florida closed that option after the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside in 2021. For any condo budget adopted on or after December 31, 2024, associations can no longer vote to waive structural reserves identified in a Structural Integrity Reserve Study. The bill that had been deferred for a decade or more came due inside a single budget cycle instead of being smoothed in gradually. 1060 Brickell's SIRS found real deterioration. It also found what fifteen years of low dues had been quietly deferring.
Not the Only Building
Brickell Key's Isola Condominium tells a similar story with a different texture. Owners there faced a $19 million assessment for pool deck and garage repairs, with three smaller assessments layered on afterward. One resident described a party room that had sat closed for five years and was being used for storage, a business center stripped of its computers, and a conference room leased out to a roofing company doing work on the building. The building's association declined to comment when Biscayne Times asked about it twice.
The pattern is not that any single board mismanaged its building. It is that a large share of Brickell's skyline went up during the same construction window in the 2000s, and those buildings are now arriving at their first milestone inspection and their first mandatory SIRS cycle at roughly the same time, under a law that no longer lets them spread the cost quietly.
The clock has not stopped. Associations that existed under unit-owner control on or before July 1, 2022 had until December 31, 2025 to complete an initial SIRS, a deadline that has already passed. Buildings coordinating that study with a required milestone inspection have until December 31, 2026, a hard backstop with no further extensions, arriving before this year is out. Some Brickell towers are working through that compliance right now, which means the reserve number a listing agent quotes in October could be different from the one in a December board meeting.
The Rule That Changed in August
Special assessments used to be mostly an owner's problem. If you already lived in the building, the bill was yours. If you were selling, Florida law required disclosure through the condo questionnaire and estoppel certificate under Florida Statute 718.503, and a buyer could weigh the cost before closing.
What changed this summer is financing, not disclosure. Effective August 3, 2026, Fannie Mae's Lender Letter LL-2026-03 retired the Limited Review approval path for established condo projects of more than ten units. Under the earlier framework, many buildings with modest issues could still qualify for conventional financing through a lighter review. Under the current rule, lenders now have to run the fuller review on those larger projects, reading the milestone report, the reserve study, the current budget, and the insurance in detail. Unresolved litigation or unfunded structural findings, the exact profile a contested special assessment produces, can make a project ineligible for conventional loans altogether.
That has a direct effect on who can buy. Miami-Dade condo sales closed in cash at a rate of 48.5 percent in June 2026, against roughly 12.3 months of supply. A building that loses its conventional-financing eligibility does not stop selling. It just narrows to buyers who do not need a mortgage, which changes the price a seller can realistically expect and how long a unit sits on the market.
| What buyers used to read it as | What it actually signals in 2026 |
|---|---|
| Low monthly HOA fee | Possibly years of underfunded structural reserves now due at once |
| "Only 16 years old" | Squarely inside the window for a building's first milestone inspection and SIRS cycle |
| An assessment dispute is the seller's problem | Ongoing litigation or a funding gap can strip conventional financing from every future buyer, not just the current one |
What to Actually Ask For Before You Write an Offer
A finished kitchen and a water view tell you almost nothing about a building's reserve position. Before an offer goes in on a Brickell resale, ask the listing agent or the association for:
- The most recent Structural Integrity Reserve Study, including the percentage of required reserves currently funded
- The milestone inspection report, and whether a Phase 2 investigation was triggered
- Board meeting minutes from the past twelve to twenty-four months, specifically any discussion of assessments, financing, or reserve waivers
- Written confirmation from a lender that the specific building currently qualifies for conventional financing under Fannie Mae's Full Review, not the retired Limited Review path
- Any pending or approved special assessment not yet reflected in the current budget
If an association cannot produce these within a reasonable window, that gap is itself useful information.
FAQ
Does this reserve law apply to single-family homes with an HOA in Brickell, or only condo towers? The Structural Integrity Reserve Study requirement applies to condominium and cooperative associations under Florida Statute Chapter 718, specifically buildings three or more habitable stories tall. Single-family HOAs governed under Chapter 720 are not subject to SIRS, though they carry their own separate reserve considerations.
My unit's HOA fee looks lower than similar buildings nearby. Is that a red flag by itself? Not automatically, but it is a question worth asking directly rather than assuming. A low fee in an older building can mean efficient management, or it can mean the SIRS-driven reserve requirement has not yet been folded into the budget. The SIRS document itself, not the fee, is what answers the question.
How do I find out if a specific building still qualifies for conventional financing before I even schedule a showing? A lender can run a project eligibility check against Fannie Mae's current condo guidelines for a specific address before you tour anything. Given how recently the Limited Review path was retired, it is worth confirming this before falling in love with a unit rather than after.
If you are weighing a Brickell condo purchase or wondering what a specific building's reserve position and financing status actually look like right now, the Ramona Bautista Team can help you pull the SIRS, the milestone report, and the current lending status on a building before you write an offer, not after.
