Who maintains what in a Miami condo: you or the building?

The declaration draws a line through the home, and the air conditioning is the item that shows where it runs. In most Florida condominiums the owner maintains everything inside the unit's boundaries, the finishes, the fixtures, the appliances, the interior plumbing and electrical from the point they serve only that home, and the air handler and thermostat that cool it; the association maintains the structure, the exterior, the roof, the shared systems and the common elements, and often the condenser or the chilled water plant the air handler draws on. Windows, glass and terrace doors sit on the line and the documents say which side. A terrace is usually a limited common element, owned in common, reserved to one home, and maintained by the association or the owner according to the declaration. The buyer reads one section of the declaration for this, before the contract, and the rules for what the building does inside the home when nobody is there.

Through the statute first and the declaration second. Florida's condominium statute sets what the association insures and, by extension, maintains: the building as built, with the finishes inside each unit excluded, so the floor coverings, the wall coverings, the cabinetry, the countertops, the appliances, the water heater and the electrical fixtures inside the home are the owner's. The declaration then says, for this building, where the unit's boundaries are, usually the unfinished interior surfaces of the perimeter walls, floors and ceilings, and lists the items the owner must keep up and the items the association will. The two documents are read together, and where they disagree the statute's rule on what the association must insure sets the floor. The buyer reads the maintenance and repair article of the declaration in the rescission window, with counsel, because it decides the next twenty years of phone calls. Read the five sections of the condominium documents, which documents to get before closing on a new Miami condo and who pays when water leaks into your Miami condo from above.

It depends on how the building is cooled, and the sheet rarely says. A home with its own split system has an air handler inside the unit and a condenser somewhere outside it; the air handler, the thermostat, the filters and the drain line are the owner's, and the condenser is the owner's or the association's according to the declaration, since it may sit on a common element roof. A tower on a central chilled water plant has the plant, the pumps and the risers as common elements maintained by the association, and the fan coil inside the home as the owner's. In both cases the filter, the drain line and the humidity setting are the owner's, and in Miami the humidity setting is the one that matters when the owner is away, because a home left warm and shut grows what nobody wants to find in October. The buyer asks the sales team which system the building uses, who services it, and whether the building's staff will change a filter on a schedule for an absent owner. Read humidity and mold at Olara, wellness, air, water and spa at Six Fisher Island and can the building enter your Miami condo when you are away.

Windows and sliding doors on a Miami tower are impact rated and part of the envelope, so most declarations make them the association's to replace and the owner's to keep clean and operable, with the seals and the locks sometimes on the owner's side; the buyer reads which. The terrace is a limited common element in nearly every declaration: the owner uses it exclusively, the association maintains the structure and the waterproofing beneath the tile, and the declaration assigns the tile, the railing, the planters and the summer kitchen to one side or the other. The plumbing follows a simple rule that the documents restate: pipes serving only one home are that home's from the point they branch off, and pipes serving more than one are the association's. The same rule governs the electrical from the home's own panel. A buyer who has read this once knows whom to call about a slow drain and whom to call about a stack. Read what private beach access means, terraces and balconies at Waldorf Astoria and is the private rooftop deeded.

Standards, and sometimes a service. A branded tower's licence and its rules may require the owner to keep the interior to the brand's standard, to use the brand's approved contractors for certain work, and to allow the operator to inspect, which is a maintenance obligation on the owner's side that an unbranded building does not carry. In exchange the operator may offer in-residence maintenance by the item, from filter changes to a handyman, billed outside the association fee. The buyer reads the licence and the rules for both halves, and asks what is required and what is offered. Read who pays to refurbish the shared spaces of a branded Miami condo, what the branded residence premium buys and the first year of owning a Miami condo.

The question becomes who notices. The owner's items still fail when the owner is in another city, and a leak from the owner's water heater into the home below is the owner's claim whether or not anyone was home. The declaration gives the association a right of access for emergencies and for maintenance on the terms the documents set; the rules say whether the building offers an absent-owner program, a weekly walk-through, a filter change, a flush of the taps, and at what price; and the owner's insurer may ask what was done while the home was empty. The buyer who will own from abroad asks three questions before the contract: who holds a key, who walks the home and how often, and who is called first when the sensor in the hallway goes off. Read owning a Miami condo from abroad, living part-time in Downtown Miami and what a Miami HOA fee covers and what makes it rise. The desk reads the maintenance article and the access clause with the buyer before the contract, and lists the calls that will still be theirs.