Miami Gets New Condo Disclosure Rules After Surfside Building Collapse

(Bloomberg) -- Miami-Dade County will require its more than 6,000 condominiums and homeowner associations to release financial statements and information about building maintenance to the public after a collapse last year in Surfside that killed 98 people. 

New rules approved Tuesday will mandate that they submit documents about budgets, financial accounts, maintenance, engineering reports, planned capital projects and insurance certificates to a public database to be created by the county. The information had been previously available to owners and buyers under contract, but could be hard to access by other parties, including real-estate agents.

“This is an important first step toward increasing transparency and accountability of condo associations in Miami-Dade,” county mayor Daniella Levine Cava said on Twitter. “Homeowners deserve to know what's happening with oversight of their properties.”

The database will be launched in January and building associations must register by Feb. 1. Buildings that don't comply will face penalities. 

The county's chief operations officer, Jimmy Morales, said in a letter filed with the proposal that the measure would help residents by making information more readily available. The data may harm the value of units in associations with “significant maintenance and repair obligations, financial distress, or other challenges,” he wrote.

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