Buying a Miami Condo to Renovate: What to Check First

Ask your agent to request the full package in writing, and give the seller and the association enough time to produce it during your inspection period. At a minimum you want the recorded declaration and every recorded amendment, the bylaws and articles, the association's rules and regulations, the alteration or renovation policy, board and membership meeting minutes for the last twelve to twenty four months, the current operating budget, the reserve schedule and current reserve balances, any assessment history and any assessment currently under discussion, the insurance summary, and the status of the building's required inspections.

Read it in that order. The declaration tells you what you own. The rules tell you what the building will let you do to it. The minutes tell you what the building is about to do to itself. The budget and reserves tell you who pays for that. The inspection status tells you when. Skipping any one of the five leaves a hole exactly where the expensive surprises live, and every one of these documents is obtainable before you are contractually committed.

The renovation policy is often a separate document that never appears in a listing. It is the one that governs your calendar and your contractor. Buildings set their own requirements for submission drawings, contractor licensing and insurance certificates, security deposits, work hours, elevator reservations, debris removal, protection of common corridors, and how long the whole thing may run. None of that is state law. It is written by each association, it varies enormously between two towers on the same street, and it is entirely enforceable against you once you own the unit.

Read it for three things. First, whether the building imposes a hard limit on project duration, because a limit shorter than your scope forces a different construction sequence and often a different budget. Second, whether it restricts work during certain months or during high season. Third, whether it requires specific licensed trades or a preferred vendor for anything, since that quietly removes competitive bidding from part of your project. Ask for the current version in writing, and ask whether any amendment to it is pending before the board.

Minutes are the cheapest diligence you will ever do. Read the last two years and look for the recurring subjects: roof, facade, windows, elevators, plumbing risers, garage repair, insurance renewals, litigation, and any discussion of an assessment. A board that has been circling the same water intrusion problem for six meetings is telling you something no unit level inspection report will.

Then read the budget alongside the reserve schedule. You are looking for the gap between what the components will eventually cost and what is actually funded today. A building with a large funding gap sitting next to a big capital item carries a real probability of a special assessment, and that assessment competes directly with your renovation budget for the same money. If the numbers are close, the sequencing question becomes simple: either let the building do its work first, or plan your interior around the possibility that a riser or a window line gets opened after your finishes are in.

Three separate requirements sit behind almost every Miami tower. They are not the same thing, they are often confused with one another, and each one has its own article on this site.

• County recertification is the Miami-Dade ordinance requirement that sets when the building itself must be recertified and how that schedule collides with your interior work: see condo recertification and interior renovation in Miami.
• The Milestone inspection is the state structural inspection under Fla. Stat. 553.899, performed by a licensed architect or engineer, and what it finds can reorder your project: see the Milestone inspection in Miami.
• The SIRS is the structural integrity reserve study under Fla. Stat. 718.112(2)(g), and it is the money question, because it drives dues and assessment risk: see the SIRS reserve study in Florida.

For diligence purposes you only need to establish three facts about each before you sign: whether it has been completed, what it concluded, and what the board has budgeted in response. Ask for the documents themselves, not a verbal summary from a listing agent, and read the conclusions rather than the cover page.

Buyers routinely assume that ownership means control of everything inside the front door. It does not, and the statute is specific about where the limit sits.

The state also publishes a plain language reference, the DBPR guide "Condominium Unit-Owner Rights and Responsibilities", which is worth reading once before you make an offer. Two of those provisions carry most of the practical weight. Section 718.113(3) is the reason a competent architect will refuse to relocate a stack that serves other units. Section 718.111(5) is the reason a building can enter your finished apartment to reach a common element behind your new millwork, which is a strong argument for access panels designed in from the start rather than cut in later.

Walk the unit a second time with the renovation in mind rather than the furniture. You are mapping constraints, and four of them decide most of the plan.

Find the vertical stacks first. In a tower the waste and vent risers run in fixed shafts, and the bathrooms and kitchen were laid out around them when the building was built. Because a stack serving more than one unit is normally a common element, the practical result is that the toilet, the kitchen sink and the primary drains stay within a short distance of where they are today. You can change everything about how a bathroom looks and still be tied to the same square meter of floor for the drainage. Ask where the shafts are, ask whether the building has ever relined or replaced the risers, and ask whether any riser work is planned, because a replaced riser means opened walls.

Check whether there is a gas riser serving the unit at all. Many Miami towers are all electric and some carry gas, and it is determined building by building. There is no rule that gas is unavailable above a given floor, so do not accept that as an explanation from anyone. If you want a gas range, the only answer that counts is whether the building has a gas service, whether it reaches your line, and what the association permits in writing.

This is the most common design disappointment in condo purchases. Buyers picture a professional vented hood and discover that the tower will not allow it. The reason sits in the mechanical code, not in the board's taste.

Under FBC Mechanical 2023, 501.3.1, exhaust air must discharge to the outdoors at a minimum distance and without creating a public nuisance. In a mid stack unit of a curtain wall tower there is usually no compliant place to put that discharge, which is the technical basis for the refusal. Where a common multistory duct carries kitchen exhaust from several units, that shaft has to maintain its required fire resistance, which is why an individual owner cannot tap into or divert the shared riser. What the code does allow, under FBC Mechanical 2023, 505, is a listed and labeled ductless recirculating hood, which is not required to discharge to the outdoors when it is installed per the manufacturer and Chapter 4 ventilation exists. That is the code reason towers use recirculating hoods, and it is why the hood should be selected early: a recirculating unit changes the depth, the filter access and the millwork above the range.

The permit side matters too. Miami-Dade exempts replacing kitchen cabinets, vanities or panels within a residential unit in the same configuration, but any associated plumbing, mechanical or electrical work requires a permit if it is relocated, reconfigured or altered. Minor electrical repair by a licensed contractor under five hundred dollars in materials and labor is exempt, as is replacing fifteen to twenty ampere, one hundred twenty volt or lower switches and outlets. A same footprint cabinet swap is a legally different project from a real kitchen, and the price difference follows the permit line, not the cabinet catalogue.

Look at the glass and ask two questions: is it impact rated, and who owns it. Window and door assemblies are frequently common elements or limited common elements, which means replacement is governed by the association and often by a building wide specification, not by your preference. If the building has a facade or glazing project on the horizon, learn its scope and timing before you specify anything at the perimeter.

The statute helps here. Fla. Stat. 718.113(5) provides that installing, maintaining, repairing, replacing and operating hurricane protection is not a material alteration, which removes the material alteration approval hurdle from that specific category of work. It does not remove the building's own submission requirements or the permit, and it does not let you deviate from a uniform exterior appearance the declaration may impose. In the Glass Residence, a penthouse level condominium in Miami Beach, floor to ceiling glazing meant solar control and glare had to be resolved before any furniture plan was worth drawing, and that sequence applies to any unit with a large glass perimeter.

If you plan to remove carpet and install stone, tile or wood, the sound requirement is the item that most often forces a change of assembly after the fact. The Florida Building Code 2023, section 1207.1 applies to walls, partitions and floor ceiling assemblies separating units from each other and from public areas such as corridors, stairs and service areas. Section 1207.3 sets a minimum Impact Insulation Class of 50 tested in the laboratory, or a field AIIC of 45. Section 1207.2 covers airborne sound at STC 50 in the laboratory or NNIC 45 in the field.

That is the code floor. Buildings routinely require more than the code minimum in their own rules, and the required number is set by each association, so get it in writing before you price an underlayment. There is no single citywide standard, and any contractor who quotes you one without showing you your building's actual rule is guessing. The practical consequence for a buyer is height: a higher performance assembly is thicker, and the extra thickness has to be absorbed at door undercuts, thresholds, and any transition to a terrace or a balcony slab.

Bathrooms are where money concentrates and where the code detail matters. Two provisions carry the weight in a residential condominium. FBC Plumbing 2023, 312.9 requires the shower liner test: the drain is plugged, the area is filled with potable water to not less than two inches measured at the threshold, and it must hold for not less than fifteen minutes with no evidence of leakage. FBC Building 2023, 1210.2.3 requires showers and walls above tubs with showers to be finished with a smooth, nonabsorbent surface to a height of not less than seventy two inches above the drain.

Worth knowing, because it is published incorrectly almost everywhere: sections 1210.2.1 and 1210.2.2, the four inch base and the four foot wall requirements, expressly exclude dwelling units. In a condominium residence the operative requirements are 1210.2.3 plus the 312.9 test. And the reason your stack does not move remains 718.113(3) together with 718.113(2)(a), since vertical stacks serving more than one unit are typically defined as common elements in the declaration. Read that definition before you fall in love with a floor plan that relocates the primary bath.

Send these in writing, ask for written answers, and keep them with your file. A building that will not answer them before closing is itself a data point.

• What is the current renovation or alteration policy, and is any amendment pending?
• What must be submitted for approval, and who reviews it: the manager, a committee, or the full board?
• What are the permitted work hours and days, and is there any seasonal restriction?
• Is there a limit on how long a unit renovation may run?
• What are the contractor licensing and insurance requirements, and is a deposit required?
• Are elevator use, staging and debris removal scheduled, and how?
• What is the building's required sound rating for hard flooring, and what documentation proves compliance?
• Does the building have a gas service, and does it reach this unit?
• Are vented range hoods permitted in this line, and if not, what hood type is accepted?
• Who owns and who replaces the windows and sliding doors, and is a glazing project planned?
• Has the building completed its required inspections and its reserve study, and may I have copies?
• Is any special assessment currently proposed, approved or under discussion?
• Is any riser, facade, roof or garage work scheduled in the next thirty six months?

Some findings are ordinary and simply get priced in. Others are structural to the deal. Treat the following as reasons to renegotiate or walk: a building that cannot produce its inspection or reserve documents; a large reserve funding gap sitting next to an imminent capital item; minutes that show a recurring, unresolved water intrusion or facade issue; an alteration policy so restrictive that your scope cannot physically be built within the allowed hours and duration; a declaration that puts the windows, the terrace and the mechanical equipment in the association's hands while the listing markets them as yours to change; and any pending litigation involving the building envelope.

A quieter red flag is a unit that has already been renovated without approval or without permits. You inherit that. Unpermitted work becomes your problem at resale, at insurance renewal, and whenever the association exercises its access rights. Ask directly what work was done, when, and whether permits were pulled and closed, then verify rather than accept the answer. Note also that under Fla. Stat. 489.127 unlicensed contracting, including pulling a permit without a license, is a crime in Florida: a first degree misdemeanor on a first offense, and a third degree felony on repeat offenses or during a declared state of emergency.

The point of all of this is a budget you can defend at the negotiating table. Once you know the boundary, the rules, the stacks, the hood type, the glass ownership and the required floor rating, the scope stops being a wish list and becomes a set of priced decisions. The plan that survives is the one that spends where the building actually lets you spend: millwork, stone, lighting, plaster, doors, and the systems inside your own boundary, rather than a long fight over a wall the association owns.

That is how we approach a purchase level review before a client commits. In the Ong-Sapla Residence in Fort Lauderdale, the large island kitchen and the wine room were only possible because the layout was tested against what could realistically be serviced before any finish was chosen. If you are evaluating a specific building, our condo and penthouse design practice runs this diligence alongside your agent during the inspection period, and you can see how the studio works across the city on our Miami interior design page.

One last piece of advice: do the document review before the emotional commitment, not after. Every constraint described here is knowable during the inspection period, and every one of them is far cheaper to discover then than in the second week of demolition.