A resale at Bentley Residences is a different purchase from a developer sale, and the difference is three papers: the resale package the seller must hand you, the estoppel certificate the association issues on what the home owes, and the approval clause in the declaration. Before keys there is no resale at Bentley Residences, only the assignment of a contract. Here is what each paper says, the days each one starts, who pays the fees around them, and what you give up against buying from the developer on the same floor.
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Three kinds of seller can offer you a home at Bentley Residences, and the paperwork follows the seller, not the home. The developer sells from its inventory under the purchase agreement in the condominium documents: fifteen days to cancel, deposits in escrow, a warranty clock that starts at your closing. A contract holder, before keys, sells the right to close on a home that does not yet exist; that is an assignment, which the developer of Bentley Residences must consent to and usually charges for, on the original agreement’s terms. An owner, after keys, sells a home that exists, and that is the resale this page is about. The tower that decides which sellers exist today: ~216 oceanfront residences across 63 stories.
The second thing that changes is the room. A resale at Bentley Residences is one home on one floor, finished the way its first owner chose, at a price the owner sets and can move; the developer sells a line and a floor from a list, at a published price, with the finish to come. Where both are for sale at Bentley Residences at once, the owner competes with the developer for the same buyer. What the resale competes with on the price list: Private 3 or 4 car garages, private heated pools with raised sundecks, summer kitchens with Gaggenau, 10 foot ceilings, sauna in the primary bath. The developer it competes against: Dezer Development.
The third thing is who answers you. The gallery at Bentley Residences answers for the developer and owes you nothing about an owner’s home; the owner’s agent answers for the owner; the association answers for the building, in writing, through the two papers below. Miami Dossier represents the buyer in either purchase at Bentley Residences and never the development.
The Bentley Residences dossier holds the developer’s published record. Read it against the Kempinski Residences Miami Design District dossier for the nearest comparison.
Florida’s condominium law makes a seller who is not the developer give the buyer a set of documents: the declaration, the articles and the bylaws as recorded, the rules, the association’s most recent year end financial statement, the question and answer sheet it keeps current, and a short governance form. Receiving them opens a window of three business days in which you may cancel, and the right ends at closing. The seller at Bentley Residences who hands the package over late hands you the window late. Three days, not fifteen, is the first difference a buyer used to developer contracts notices at Bentley Residences.
Read the package for what has changed since the developer’s version. The declaration at Bentley Residences as recorded can carry amendments the first owners voted; the budget is the association’s own now, not the developer’s estimate; the financial statement shows whether assessments are collected and the reserve lines funded; the question and answer sheet states the rental terms, the approval rule and any pending special assessment in plain words. What the budget pays to keep running at Bentley Residences: Over ~20,000 SF across three levels furnished by Bentley Home: a three story lobby with ocean views, lobby restaurant under 33 foot glass, whiskey bar, 16 seat private dining room, 14 seat theatre, cigar lounge, spa and pet spa, beauty salon, simulator game room, oceanfront pool and 10 cabanas. Who manages the staff that budget carries: No brand or operator is recorded for this building.
Ask the owner for what the law does not list and a careful owner keeps: a year of board minutes, the master insurance certificate, the inspection and reserve reports once Bentley Residences is old enough to have them, and the home’s own file, the warranty terms with the date each period began, the signed punch list, the as built plan, and the written assignment of any parking space or storage room. A seller at Bentley Residences who cannot produce the home’s file is telling you something about the home.
The estoppel certificate is the association’s signed statement about one home. The closing agent or the seller requests it, Florida law gives the association a set number of business days to deliver it and caps the fee it may charge, and the fee is paid at closing by whichever side the contract names, usually the seller. For a resale at Bentley Residences it states what the home owes in assessments and when the next instalment falls due, any special assessment levied and what remains of it, late charges, violations of record, whether the association must approve the buyer or holds a right of first refusal, whether a capital contribution or a transfer fee is due on the sale, and which parking space and storage room go with the home. The address the certificate and the lien search both describe: The position is as the dossier records.
The certificate binds the association. For the days it stands, thirty from issue and a few more when mailed, the association cannot collect from you anything it left off, which is why no closing agent closes without a current one and a closing that slips past its date needs a fresh one. What it does not do is forecast. A special assessment the board at Bentley Residences is discussing but has not levied is not on the certificate; the minutes are where that lives, and a direct written question to the manager.
Where the developer still controls the board at Bentley Residences, the manager it appointed issues the certificate, and the same request is the moment to ask in writing whether the developer is current on the assessments for the homes it has not sold. The certificate is one paper in a set: the title agent runs a municipal lien search on the address, and the owner’s title policy issued to you covers what the record missed. The home as the designers delivered it, whose warranty ran from the first closing and does not restart at yours: Bentley Motors, interior and exterior design · Sieger Suarez Architects.
If the declaration at Bentley Residences requires approval of sales, the clock starts when the application is complete, not when the contract is signed, and runs for the days the declaration gives; a right of first refusal adds its own days on top. A resale contract at Bentley Residences usually makes the approval a condition with a date. The two fees the certificate names are often confused: a capital contribution is paid by the buyer to the association on transfer and goes to its working capital or reserves; a transfer fee at a branded building goes to the brand or the manager for the change of owner, and some brands require the home to be brought back to their specification at the sale. Both are closing numbers to read before the offer, not after.
The developer’s deposit schedule is the one thing a resale buyer at Bentley Residences never pays; a resale deposit sits with the title agent until closing, and the contract says what becomes of it if the three days or the approval condition end the agreement. The schedule the first buyers paid, which is part of why the owner wants the price the owner wants: The deposit schedule is held by the desk and read with you before contract.
Six questions before an offer on a resale at Bentley Residences. Has the seller delivered the full package, and on what date? Does the financial statement show the reserves funded? What does the question and answer sheet say about rentals, approval and pending assessments? Is the closing date inside the estoppel’s life? Is a capital contribution or a transfer fee due, and who pays it? What is missing from the home’s own file?
The trade-off is a home you can stand in against a page you can choose from. The resale at Bentley Residences is finished, with a view you have seen and a seller who can negotiate, a warranty already running from someone else’s closing, three days instead of fifteen, and the association’s say on who buys. The developer’s home at Bentley Residences is a line on a list with the finish to come, a longer wait, a warranty that starts with you, fifteen days to read, and no estoppel because there is nothing yet to owe. They are different purchases at the same address. The desk reads the package, the certificate and the price list for Bentley Residences with you before the offer, and introduces counsel for the contract.
The developer sells a promise with fifteen days to read it. An owner sells a home with three. Read faster, not less.
Developer materials for Bentley Residences as carried on the live dossier, verified 2026-09-19. Compiled by the desk at Miami Dossier; figures are approximate and the developer’s.
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We hold no listings and we are not the developer. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier and we will tell you what applies to your situation, what does not, and where we would not proceed. On this topic that means the document before the opinion. Where a question is legal, tax or structuring, we introduce you to advisers who handle that properly rather than answering it ourselves.
Miami Dossier is the private buyer advisory of Metrik Real Estate, built to represent buyers in Miami pre-construction. Principal: Samuel Strauch.
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