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Last year ninety-eight people lost their lives when their 13-story Miami condo building collapsed in the middle of the night. Three years before the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium complex, an engineer had warned of major structural damage to the building’s foundation, including cracking concrete columns and exposed rebar as a result of unrepaired water leaks and poor waterproofing around the pool.

The repairs outlined in the engineers’ report would cost millions of dollars and left condo owners with a special assessment between $80,000-$200,000¹. So rather than fixing the issues immediately, the board struggled with the decision over the next two years, and unfortunately, by the time they decided to move forward with a repair plan in 2021, it was too late.

Experts believed that a structural column or concrete slab beneath the pool deck likely gave way, causing the pool deck to collapse into the parking garage below and thus destabilizing the rest of the building.²

While this is a devastating, and an extreme example, it’s a good reminder that maintenance can only be deferred so long because it becomes very difficult and expensive to repair, or ultimately results in structural failure.

At Schinkel Properties, we help manage the reserve fund studies and that will pick up and identify these maintenance items in a timely fashion, and then we work together with your condo board to develop a schedule, budgeting and repair plans to ensure your building is well maintained and continues to be a safe home that holds it’s value for condo owners.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/26/us/miami-building-collapse-investigation.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surfside_condominium_collapse

by Justin Schinkel, Manager