Florida made structural condo reserves non-waivable in 2024. New York's equivalent bill never moved.
The most restrictive structural reserve mandate in the country has been in effect for twenty months. Companion to Florida's first wave of post-Surfside reforms.
Florida Statute § 718.112, as amended by Senate Bill 4-D (ch. 2022-269) and Senate Bill 154 (ch. 2023-228), required every condominium association in a building three or more habitable stories to commission a Structural Integrity Reserve Study and, beginning with any budget adopted after December 31, 2024, to fund its eight structural components in full. Unit owners cannot vote to reduce that funding. New York's reserve study companion bills, A8945 and S7600, were referred to committee in the 2025–2026 session. Neither received a floor vote before Albany adjourned on June 5, 2026.
What the waiver ban prohibits.
Florida's pre-2022 condominium law, like New York's today, allowed unit owners to vote annually to waive or reduce reserve contributions. A simple majority could approve deferral. Many associations used that mechanism to hold common charges down, setting aside little or nothing for major structural repairs over years or decades.
SB 4-D removed that option for eight structural components: the roof, load-bearing walls and primary structural systems, floor, foundation, fireproofing and fire protection systems, plumbing, electrical systems, waterproofing and exterior painting, windows, and exterior doors, and any item expected to cost more than $25,000 to repair or replace. For any budget adopted on or after December 31, 2024, funding for those components must equal the amount specified in the association's most recent Structural Integrity Reserve Study. Unit owners cannot vote the amount down. Boards cannot substitute a lower number at the annual meeting. There is no exemption for financial hardship or owner opposition.
Failure to fund is not merely a policy error. Florida Statute § 718.111(13) makes underfunding a breach of fiduciary duty by the directors who approved the budget. There is no statutory cure period and no de minimis threshold.
What a Structural Integrity Reserve Study requires.
A SIRS combines two functions: a visual condition inspection of the eight covered structural components and a thirty-year funding schedule that calculates how much the association must contribute annually to have sufficient reserves when each component requires repair or replacement. The schedule is not a recommendation. Once adopted, it sets the legal floor for reserve contributions in every subsequent budget.
The study must be performed by a Florida-licensed engineer or architect. Senate Bill 154 (2023) clarified that credential requirement, removing language that had been read by some associations to permit general contractors or property managers to prepare the study. The credential question matters because the study's funding schedule is now legally binding output, not advisory analysis.
Initial studies were due by December 31, 2025 for most associations, with an extension to December 31, 2026 for those coordinating with a concurrent milestone inspection under Florida Statute § 718.112(2)(f). After the initial study, an updated SIRS is required at least every ten years. An association that has not commissioned its initial study is simultaneously out of compliance on the study requirement and, because no study exists, cannot demonstrate that it is funding structural reserves at the required level.
SB 154 also addressed buildings that had historically underfunded structural reserves before the waiver ban took effect. Rather than requiring immediate full funding of the cumulative deficit, the statute allows associations to adopt a phase-in schedule, provided the schedule is approved by a licensed engineer, included in the SIRS, and results in full funding within a defined timeframe. The phase-in option is not available indefinitely: boards that neither commission a SIRS nor adopt a phase-in schedule by the applicable deadline are subject to enforcement action by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
New York's reserve study bills: what they would require, and what they omit.
Assembly Bill A8945, introduced July 16, 2025, and Senate Bill S7600, introduced in the same session, would require New York condominium and cooperative associations to complete capital reserve studies with 30-year funding plans, prepared or overseen by a credentialed reserve specialist, architect, or engineer, and filed with the Attorney General. S7600 was reported out of committee. A8945 was referred to the Assembly Housing Committee without a hearing. Albany adjourned the 2025–2026 session on June 5, 2026 without passing either bill.
Two features of the proposed language are worth noting, because they define the gap between what New York is debating and what Florida has already enacted.
The NY bills would require the study but do not include a non-waivable full-funding provision. A New York condominium that completed a reserve study under the proposed law would still be able to decline to follow the study's funding schedule. The annual vote to reduce or waive reserve contributions would remain intact. The core structural gap that Florida closed in 2024 would remain open in New York even after reform.
The bills also apply a size threshold. A8945 covers associations with six or more units. Florida's SIRS requirement reaches every condominium in a building of three or more habitable stories, with no unit-count floor.
A third gap in the proposed New York language involves enforcement. Under A8945 and S7600, the completed reserve study would be filed with the Attorney General. Filing with the AG is not the same as AG enforcement authority over the reserve fund balance. As the CondosCoopsNYC analysis of the Martin Act's structural limits explains, the AG's Real Estate Finance Bureau does not have statutory authority to compel post-offering-plan governance compliance. A filed study would be a public record. It would not give the AG power to order an underfunded board to increase contributions, any more than the AG's existing offering-plan review authority gives it power over how a board conducts its annual meeting.
| Requirement | Florida (F.S. § 718.112) | NY proposed (A8945 / S7600) | NY current law |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reserve study required | Yes — SIRS every 10 years | Yes (if passed) | No |
| Study preparer credentials | Licensed engineer or architect | Credentialed reserve specialist, architect, or engineer | No requirement |
| Non-waivable funding | Yes — unit owners cannot reduce structural reserves | No — waiver mechanism remains | No requirement |
| Components covered | 8 structural components + items over $25,000 | Capital items generally | No requirement |
| Board fiduciary liability for underfunding | Yes — breach under F.S. § 718.111(13) | Not specified in bill language | No applicable standard |
| Effective date | Budgets adopted after Dec 31, 2024 | Proposed — not enacted | N/A |
Why New York courts cannot correct the gap.
New York's Business Judgment Rule, established for cooperative boards in Levandusky v. One Fifth Ave. Apartment Corp., 75 N.Y.2d 530 (1990), insulates board financial decisions from owner challenge absent evidence of self-dealing, fraud, or absence of a legitimate purpose. Courts do not second-guess a board that reduces or defers reserve contributions. The parallel authority for condominium boards flows from Real Property Law § 339-j, which gives boards the power to assess, collect, and manage common charges without a statutory floor on reserve amounts or a requirement that those amounts bear any relationship to actual structural need.
The consequence is that the first actor to price a New York building's structural underfunding is not a state regulator with remediation authority. It is the mortgage market. When Fannie Mae's post-August 3, 2026 full review identifies insufficient reserves under Lender Letter LL-2026-03, the building does not receive a corrective action plan. It receives a loss of conventional financing eligibility. Market discipline prices the deficit but cannot compel its correction.
How the Business Judgment Rule and the absence of reserve standards interact with mortgage-market correction is examined in detail at An untouchable board and no standard to hold it to.
What the enforcement cycle means for New York buildings.
Florida's SIRS requirement followed the June 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside, which killed 98 people. Legislative records showed that the building's board had received engineer reports identifying structural deterioration and had repeatedly voted with unit owners to defer reserve contributions. The SIRS statute, the waiver ban, and the fiduciary-duty provision were all direct responses to that documented paper trail.
New York has 10,882 condominium buildings and 4,226 cooperative buildings, per the PLUTO-based dataset published by CondosCoopsNYC. No state agency tracks which of those buildings holds a current reserve study. No state agency tracks which has funded structural reserves in any amount. Fannie Mae's post-August 3 full-review process is now building the first external inventory of underfunded buildings, project by project, as individual units come up for sale or refinancing. That is a correction mechanism for buyers and lenders. It is not a remediation program for buildings.
Florida's waiver ban entered its second annual budget cycle in January 2026. Every Florida condo board that adopted a 2025 or 2026 budget must have included full SIRS funding, or its members are in breach of fiduciary duty under state law. That standard does not exist in New York. The question now is not whether the structural reserve gap exists in New York buildings. The research says it does. The question is which actor prices it first: the legislature, the regulator, or the mortgage market.
Bottom line.
Florida's non-waivable structural reserve mandate requires condo boards in buildings three or more stories to fund eight structural components at the level a licensed engineer specifies, with no vote to reduce and fiduciary-duty liability for boards that fall short. That mandate has been in effect since January 2025. New York's reserve study bills were referred to committee in the 2025–2026 session and received no floor vote. Under current New York law, a board can adopt a zero-reserve budget for structural components and face no statutory consequence. The first external constraint on that decision arrives as a lender's underwriting review, not as a compliance order.
Primary sources:
• Florida Statute § 718.112, as amended by SB 4-D (ch. 2022-269, signed May 26, 2022) and SB 154 (ch. 2023-228)
• Florida Statute § 718.111(13) — fiduciary duty provision
• NY Assembly Bill A8945 (2025–2026 session, referred to Housing Committee)
• NY Senate Bill S7600 (2025–2026 session, reported out of committee, no floor vote)
• Levandusky v. One Fifth Ave. Apartment Corp., 75 N.Y.2d 530 (1990)
• Fannie Mae Lender Letter LL-2026-03 (effective August 3, 2026)
Companion resources:
• Florida fixed condo transparency after Surfside. New York hasn't. — HB 913, milestone inspections, and the cloud database requirement.
• An untouchable board and no standard to hold it to — how the Business Judgment Rule and the absence of reserve standards interact with mortgage-market correction.
• Every NYC condo loan goes to full review on August 3 — Fannie Mae's August 3 shift and what it means for NYC buildings without adequate reserves.
• No reserve fund requirement — the full CondosCoopsNYC regulatory gap analysis.
• Reserve study credentialing gap — why New York has no credential standard for study preparers.