Your deposit is escrowed. That does not mean all of it stays there, and the part that does not is the part worth understanding.
This page covers the mechanics. The arrangement for a specific building comes from the desk. Contact the desk at Miami Dossier for the current position on any building we cover.
Florida requires a developer selling preconstruction condominium units to place buyer deposits with an escrow agent, and the condominium statute governs how those funds are treated.
The protection is not uniform across the full amount. Under the statute a portion of deposits, broadly up to ten percent of the purchase price, may be used by the developer for actual construction costs once specified conditions are met. Amounts beyond that are held.
So the accurate mental model is not a locked box. It is a locked box with a defined and disclosed opening, and you should know exactly where that line falls in your contract.
The escrow agent is typically a Florida attorney or title company named in the purchase agreement. That name is disclosed and you should read it.
Ask whether the agent is independent of the developer or affiliated. Affiliation is not improper and it is common, but it is a fact you should hold rather than discover.
Ask for written confirmation from the escrow agent that your funds were received. Not from the sales gallery. From the agent, in writing, every time you wire.
Escrow wire fraud is the single most common way buyers in this market lose money, and it does not involve the developer at all. Someone intercepts or spoofs the instruction and substitutes their own account details.
Never accept changed wire instructions by email. If instructions change, treat it as fraud until proven otherwise, and verify by calling a number you already had, not one in the message.
Confirm receipt independently after sending. The window to recover a misdirected wire is measured in hours.
Who the escrow agent is, and whether they are affiliated with the developer.
What proportion of your deposit may be released to the developer for construction, and on what conditions.
What triggers the release of the remainder, and what happens to it if the project does not complete.
Whether interest accrues and to whom it belongs. On a large deposit held for years this is a real number and the answer varies.
The escrow statute protects you from the developer. It does not protect you from a spoofed email. Ask the desk at Miami Dossier and we will get the escrow terms for the building in writing.
We hold no inventory of our own and we are not the developer. Ask the desk at Miami Dossier and we will tell you what applies to your situation, what does not, and where we would not proceed. Here that starts with the escrow agent named in the agreement and confirmation in writing. Where the question is legal, tax or immigration, we will introduce you to advisers who handle that properly rather than answering it ourselves.