Effective July 1, 2017, Florida’s condominium, cooperative and mandatory homeowners’ associations (and the management companies hired by those associations) will have some certainty and guidance when dealing with requests for estoppel certificates.
Florida Statute Sections 718.116, 719.108, and 720.30851 have all been amended.
Here are just a few highlights of those amendments:
As I said, these are just a few of the “highlights”.
- The estoppel certificate must now be issued within 10 business days after the association receives the request (rather than 15 days as previously provided)
- Each of the amended statutes now specifically provides that the estoppel certificate contain certain information and each further provides that the information is to be “substantially” in a form provided in each of these statutes
- A thirty or thirty-five day effective period (depending on how the estoppel certificate is sent to the requesting party) is provided for in each of these amended statutes
- The association or its authorized agent (such as its management company) may charge a “reasonable fee” for the preparation and delivery of an estoppel certificate. Where there are no delinquent amounts owed on the date the certificate is issued, that fee cannot exceed $250. If the certificate is requested on an “expedited basis” and delivered within three business days after the request, an additional $100 may be charged, and, if a delinquent amount is owed to the association for the unit or parcel in question, an additional amount not to exceed $150 can be charged
- There are provisions governing calculating the amounts that can be charged for estoppel certificates for multiple units or parcels owned by the owner
If you are interested in reading the full text of Senate Bill 398, you can link to it here.
Please feel free to contact me through this blog if you have any questions.