What records can you ask a Florida condo association for?

Almost everything, once you own, and a defined set before you do. Florida's condominium statute makes an association keep its official records, the declaration, bylaws and rules, the minutes, the budgets and financial statements, the insurance policies, the contracts it has signed, the owner roster and the ballots, and lets any owner inspect them on written request, with the association given ten working days to make them available. Larger associations must also post a core set on a website or app for owners to read from anywhere. A buyer who does not yet own has two routes: at a resale, through the seller, who is an owner and can ask; at a new building, through the developer's disclosure set, because an association that has not begun to operate has no minutes yet. The records are where the building's real story is, and the statute means nobody can keep them from an owner for long.

The statute lists them, and the list is long on purpose. The recorded declaration, the articles and bylaws and every amendment; the rules; the minutes of board and owner meetings; the current and past budgets and the year-end financial statements; the structural integrity reserve study and the milestone inspection reports where the building is old enough to need them; the insurance policies; every contract the association has signed, for management, for services, for work; the roster of owners; the ballots and proxies after an election; and the association's own correspondence about an owner, with the owner entitled to their own file. What is kept out is narrow: another owner's medical and personnel records, attorney-client material, and security details. The buyer who reads this list reads it as a map of what to ask for first: the minutes for the last two years, the current budget and the reserve study, the insurance declarations pages and the management contract. Read the five sections of the condominium documents, which documents to get before closing on a new Miami condo and owner voting and records at Olara.

In writing, and within ten working days. An owner sends a written request naming the records; the association makes them available for inspection at a reasonable place and time, and may charge for copies at the rate the statute allows but not for the inspection itself. An association that fails to answer inside the working-day window faces statutory damages, which is why a request on paper, dated, is the tool rather than a phone call to the manager. The records may be given electronically, and an association that keeps them digitally can be asked to send them that way. What the request cannot do is turn the manager into a researcher: the owner asks for records that exist, not for an explanation of them, and reads them with counsel or with the desk. Read how to check whether a new Miami condo building has open litigation, what a condo estoppel certificate tells a Miami buyer and who manages a new Miami condo and what the management agreement says.

It depends on who is selling. At a resale the seller is an owner and can request anything on the list, so the buyer's contract asks the seller to produce the minutes, the budget, the financial statements, the insurance, the reserve study and the pending assessments, alongside the estoppel certificate that states what the seller owes and what the association plans to levy. A buyer who is refused those documents by a seller has learned something about the building without reading a page. At a new building there is no association history to read. The developer instead delivers the disclosure set the statute requires, the prospectus or offering circular, the declaration and bylaws, the estimated budget, the plans and the form of contract, and the buyer's rescission period runs from that delivery. The records of a running association begin at turnover, when the developer hands over the books, and the first owners' board inherits the statute's duty to keep them. Read what documents a Miami pre-construction buyer should request, when a Miami pre-construction reservation becomes binding and when the developer hands a Florida condo association to its owners.

Mostly on a screen. Associations above the size the statute names must post a set of the official records on a website or application that owners can reach with a password: the governing documents, the budget, the financial statements, the insurance, the contracts out for bid and the meeting notices. An owner who lives elsewhere reads those without asking anyone, and asks in writing for what is not posted. Participation follows the same path where the documents allow it: electronic voting where the board has adopted it and the owner has consented, video attendance at meetings where the bylaws provide for it, and a proxy for the votes that still need a hand in the room. A buyer who will own from another city or country reads the bylaws for those three provisions before the contract, and asks whether the association has actually adopted electronic voting rather than merely being allowed to. Read owning a Miami condo from abroad, owner voting and records at Six Fisher Island and can the building enter your Miami condo when you are away.

Read four things in a fixed order. The minutes, for the words litigation, assessment, leak and claim, and for how the board talks about money. The budget beside the reserve study, to see whether the reserves are funded at the level the study calls for and how the non-structural lines are handled. The insurance declarations pages, for the named storm deductible, the flood policy and the renewal date. And the contracts, for the manager's term and fee, the brand licence where there is one and any service contract that outlives the next board. A buyer at a new building reads the developer's estimated budget and the prospectus the same way, knowing that the numbers are projections until the first owners' year closes. Read how to read the developer's estimated budget, Miami condo insurance and what a municipal lien search tells a Miami condo buyer. The desk reads the records with the buyer, in that order, before the contract.