What Should You Know About Milestone Inspections Before Buying a Condo in Bonita Springs?

Mostly this: the law applies here just as it does anywhere else in Florida, and the age that starts the clock for a specific building is a fact to confirm rather than assume. I am Kris Asquith, Broker Associate at Premiere Plus Realty, working across nine Southwest Florida markets including Bonita Springs. Florida Statute 553.899, the milestone inspection law passed after the Surfside collapse, requires condominium and cooperative buildings of three or more habitable stories to undergo a structural inspection by a licensed engineer or architect by December 31 of the year the building reaches 30 years of age, with a repeat inspection every ten years after that. The local enforcement agency may require the first inspection at 25 years instead, where local circumstances, including environmental conditions such as proximity to salt water, call for it.

This is written for anyone buying a condo here, or already owning one and trying to work out where a specific building sits in that cycle, not for one building in particular.

The building's height and its age decide this, not its condition. Any building of three or more habitable stories is on the clock once it crosses the applicable age mark, whichever threshold its coastal distance sets, and it is the association's job, not any individual owner's, to hire the licensed engineer or architect and file the report with the local building official. A two-story building or a duplex-style structure sits outside the law regardless of age.

Compliance happens in two steps. A visual review checks for obvious signs of structural distress first; if the engineer flags anything, a second, more invasive phase follows to assess what is actually happening inside the structure. Most buildings clear the visual phase and stop there, but the report becomes part of the association's permanent record either way, and it is a document a buyer is entitled to ask for.

Not automatically. You may read that any building within three miles of the coastline must be inspected at 25 years, but that was the original 2022 version of the law, and the Legislature changed it in 2023. Today the statewide starting point is 30 years for every covered building, bay-front or inland, and 25 years applies only where the local building official has required it because of conditions such as salt water exposure.

So the question for a specific building is not how far it sits from the coastline. It is which age the local building department is actually holding that building to, and whether the association has met it. Bonita Springs is its own city, so ask the association, and if needed the building department, rather than assuming a neighboring city's approach applies here.

It is also worth asking for the date the building's first inspection was completed or is due, in writing. A buyer comparing a couple of Bonita Springs buildings against each other should treat that date as its own line item for each one, the same way you would confirm flood zone or elevation, rather than expecting both buildings to answer the same way because they share a mailing address.

A related but separate requirement, running on the same ten-year cycle, that asks a different question than the inspection does. Where the milestone inspection checks whether the building is structurally sound today, the Structural Integrity Reserve Study, required under Florida Statute 718.112(2)(g), checks whether the association is setting aside enough money now to cover the building's major structural components before any of them fail: the roof, load-bearing walls and other primary structural members, the foundation, fireproofing and fire protection systems, plumbing, electrical systems, waterproofing, and the windows and exterior doors.

What changed for buyers: an association can no longer vote to waive or underfund reserves on those specific components, the way plenty did in the past to keep monthly assessments artificially low. That is exactly the loophole the law was written to close.

No. Plenty of the housing stock across condo communities here is low-rise, two-story or townhome-style construction that falls outside the three-or-more-habitable-story threshold entirely, and the law does not touch those buildings at all. A mid-rise or high-rise building is the one to check carefully, and the first question is simply how many habitable stories it actually has, followed by its actual age against the threshold the building department applies to it.

Confirming both of those before you assume anything about a building's inspection status is a five-minute conversation with the association, and it is worth having before you get further into a purchase.

Three documents, gathered early enough that the answers can still change your decision. The milestone inspection report if the building has reached the applicable age, or written confirmation of when it is due and which age threshold the building department applies. The current Structural Integrity Reserve Study and the reserve account's funding status against it. And board minutes or association notices covering any special assessment, proposed or already levied, tied to structural work.

Request all of this during your inspection period, not after, and run it alongside your financing conversation, since a lender or an insurer may ask for the same documents before closing regardless of whether you do.

No, age by itself is the wrong thing to watch for. A building that has already been through its milestone inspection, knows when the next one is due, and is honestly funding its reserve study is a known, often more predictable, quantity than a newer building the law has not tested yet. The real warning sign is an association that has not started the process, cannot produce the paperwork, or has a track record of special assessments used to catch up on deferred structural work all at once.

Reading the actual documents, not the building's age or its lobby, is what tells you which kind of building you are looking at. That is also true across the neighboring markets I work, since an Estero lake-community mid-rise and a Fort Myers Beach beachfront tower answer this same question in their own ways, and none of the three should be assumed to match the others just because they are all in Southwest Florida.

If you are comparing a few Bonita Springs condo buildings against each other, I can help you pull the milestone and reserve status on each one before you spend a weekend touring. Get in touch or call (239) 300-1427 and we will go through what a specific building has and has not completed.