The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) has announced that ALL residential condominiums in the state of Florida must install fire sprinkler systems, unless they vote to opt-out of this requirement by the end of 2016. 

According to an article published in the Palm Beach Post on Friday, July 8, 2016, quoting Travis Keels, Deputy Director of Communications for the DBPR, “generally speaking, the fire sprinkler requirement applies to all residential condominiums.”

This year, the Florida legislative session extended from January 12, 2016, through March 11, 2016.  Our Florida legislators had filed no fewer than 24 bills in the House of Representatives and the Senate proposing various changes to the laws affecting community associations.  Changes were proposed to the laws regulating all types of associations.  For example, some of these bills proposed:

As you may be aware, this year’s Florida legislative session ended with an unprecedented early adjournment of the Florida House. As a result of an early adjournment, the most consequential bill for community associations, Senate Bill 736/ House Bill 611, was not approved.  If this bill had been approved, and signed by the Governor, your community association could have lost all ability to collect delinquent assessments if an estoppel (e.g., request by a purchaser /title company for a statement as to delinquent assessments) was not returned on time, or any portion of the assessments actually owed should the estoppel not reflect the entire amount owed. Moreover, we believed that the increased burden for compliance set forth in this bill would have caused association assessments to increase. We believe that this bill may surface again next year, and as such, your Association should be mindful as to this potential legal issue.