What Should You Know About Milestone Inspections Before Buying a Condo on Fort Myers Beach?

Because the law lets the local building official start the clock earlier where salt water is a factor, and every building on a barrier island lives with salt air. 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 same statute allows the local enforcement agency to require the first inspection at 25 years instead, where local circumstances, including environmental conditions such as proximity to salt water, call for it.

I am Kris Asquith, Broker Associate at Premiere Plus Realty, working across nine Southwest Florida markets including Fort Myers Beach. You may still read that coastal buildings are automatically on a 25-year clock, but that was the original 2022 version of the law, and the Legislature changed it in 2023. Today 30 years is the statewide rule, and 25 applies only where the local building official has required it. So for a building on the island, ask the association which age the building department is holding it to, rather than assuming either.

Height and age, not condition. The three-or-more-habitable-story threshold catches most mid-rise and high-rise buildings on the island, while a two-story building or a duplex-style structure generally falls outside the law entirely. Once a covered building reaches the age that applies to it, the association, not any individual owner, is responsible for commissioning a licensed engineer or architect to perform the inspection and file the report with the local building official.

The inspection happens in two phases. A visual phase looks for signs of substantial structural distress, and if the engineer finds any, a second, more invasive phase follows to assess what is actually happening inside the structure. A building that clears the visual phase with no red flags does not need the second phase, but the report and its findings still become part of the association's permanent record, and a buyer is entitled to ask for it.

A separate requirement that runs on the same ten-year clock but answers a different question. The milestone inspection asks whether the building is structurally sound today. The Structural Integrity Reserve Study, required under Florida Statute 718.112(2)(g), asks whether the association is actually saving enough to pay for the building's major structural components before they fail, covering items like the roof, load-bearing walls and other primary structural members, the floor, the foundation, fireproofing and fire protection systems, plumbing, electrical systems, waterproofing and exterior painting, and windows and exterior doors.

The part that matters most to a buyer: an association can no longer vote to waive or reduce reserve funding for those specific components the way many were able to in the past. That closes off the option some older associations used to keep monthly assessments artificially low by underfunding the reserve account, which is exactly the practice the law was written to stop.

It adds a second document trail worth reading alongside the milestone report. Hurricane Ian made landfall in September 2022 and caused significant damage across the island, and many condo buildings that stayed standing went through substantial repair, and in some cases substantial reconstruction, in the years since. That work generated its own permits and engineering sign-offs through the Town of Fort Myers Beach, separate from the statutory milestone inspection cycle.

A building repaired or largely rebuilt after Ian is not automatically exempt from the milestone inspection law once it reaches the statutory age, and a recent storm repair is not a substitute for the formal inspection report. Ask for both sets of documents: the storm-related permits and engineering sign-offs from the rebuild, and, separately, whether the building has reached the age where a milestone inspection and reserve study are required, and if so, whether either has actually been completed. The beachfront condos on the island vary enormously in how far along that process each association is, building by building.

Four documents, gathered early enough that the answers can still change your decision. The milestone inspection report if the building has reached the statutory age, or written confirmation of when it is due if it has not. The current Structural Integrity Reserve Study and the reserve account's funding status against it. Board minutes or association notices covering any special assessment, proposed or already levied, tied to structural work. And, where the building went through Ian repairs, the permits and final engineering sign-off for that 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, and treating age alone as the red flag misses the actual signal. A building that has already completed its milestone inspection, funded its reserve study honestly and kept its association records current is a known quantity, often a more predictable one than a newer building that has not yet been tested by the law at all. The real risk sits with an association that has not started the process, cannot produce the reports, or has a history 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. If you are comparing a few Fort Myers Beach 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.