Who pays a condo assessment at closing in Florida?

The contract decides who pays, and the estoppel certificate is the control that keeps the decision honest. The certificate, the association’s statement under section 718.116 of the Florida Statutes, states the assessments on a unit, what is unpaid and any special assessment the association has approved. An approved assessment follows the unit to the new owner. An amount unpaid at closing is settled on the closing statement, on the line the title company shows, under the allocation the contract sets. The full certificate read is in what a condo estoppel certificate tells a Miami buyer. None of this is advice; it is the mechanics, and the list a buyer takes to the title company and to counsel.

An approved special assessment is a fact of the unit: the certificate states it, its purpose and its payment schedule, and it follows the unit when the unit is sold, whether or not the buyer was present for the vote. A pending assessment, discussed or proposed but not approved, is not stated the same way, which is why the buyer asks the association and the seller the pending question separately and in writing. An unpaid amount is different again: it is a debt on the unit’s account at a date, and it is cleared or credited at closing rather than inherited by accident. Reading the three apart is the whole page. The documents behind the account are read in condominium documents: the five sections.

Two documents write it. The contract first: it says who pays what is unpaid and how an assessment that spans the closing is divided, and a buyer reads that clause before signing, not at the table. The closing statement second: it is where the allocation becomes money, line by line, and the title company can show the assessment line on request. How that statement is read in full is set out in how to read the closing statement on a new Miami condo. If the certificate and the seller’s disclosures disagree, the certificate is the association’s own statement of the account, and the disagreement is settled on the statement before funds move, with counsel reading the disputed line. What happens to a deposit while a dispute runs is read in deposit forfeiture if you walk away.

The association must deliver the certificate within ten business days of a written request, and it then speaks for a short window: 30 days when delivered electronically and 35 days when sent by mail. A certificate past its window is stale, and a new one is ordered before closing, because an assessment approved after the first certificate issued will not appear on it. The date on the certificate is therefore part of the allocation: a buyer closing late on an early certificate asks for a fresh one and compares the two. The finished building sequence that surrounds the certificate is set out in from offer to recording on a finished West Palm Beach condo.

On a pre-construction purchase there is no unit account to certify in the same way, and the document that matters is the association’s first budget in the developer’s filed documents: the estimated assessments the buyer will pay from closing, and the developer’s reserved position on funding them. The allocation question returns at the first resale in the building, when an estoppel certificate is ordered for the unit’s account. A buyer moving between the two kinds of purchase reads both: the budget before the contract, the certificate before the closing. Every other buyer question is collected in the questions buyers ask.

The live canon of Miami Dossier: the estoppel certificate page, the closing statement page, the condominium documents page and the finished building closing sequence, each read in full on 2026-10-31, stating the mechanics under section 718.116 of the Florida Statutes. Compiled by the desk at Miami Dossier.