The Orlando HOA Fee Everyone Is Reading Backwards
September 10, 2026
September 10, 2026
More than 65 homeowners at The Residences at Villa Medici in west Orlando sued their own condo association last year over a special assessment of $5,000 to $10,000 per unit, the kind of bill that shows up in a board meeting notice and rearranges a family's year. A Florida judge has since frozen collection, after finding the association's notice hadn't been mailed the required 14 days before the vote, a violation of Section 718.112 of the Florida Statutes. The case is still working through court, and by August 2026, roughly one in sixteen active listings in that building were sitting in financial distress or short-sale status, according to MLS data reported by Hoodline.
Here's the part that should change how you read a listing sheet. Villa Medici's dues weren't unusually high before this happened. That's exactly the problem, and it's a problem that's now baked into how Florida law treats older condo buildings.
For most of the last decade, a low HOA or condo fee read as a win. Lower carrying cost, more house for the money, a board that ran a tight ship. That logic still holds for a single-family HOA community like Baldwin Park, where dues fund a walkable village center and neighborhood pools rather than a structural budget. It stopped holding, at least for one entire category of Orlando property, in the years following the Champlain Towers South collapse in Surfside on June 24, 2021.
Florida's response, Senate Bill 4-D, applies to any condominium building three stories or taller. It requires a Structural Integrity Reserve Study, or SIRS, examining the roof, load-bearing structure, plumbing, and other core components on a ten-year cycle, along with a milestone inspection at 30 years of age, or 25 years for buildings within three miles of the coast. Orlando sits well inland, so for nearly every condo tower in the metro, 30 years is the number that matters. The part that actually moves monthly dues arrived on December 31, 2024, when the law eliminated the board vote that used to let associations waive or underfund those structural reserves. Full funding in line with the study became mandatory starting January 1, 2026, and every SIRS must be complete by December 31, 2026.
Translation for a buyer standing in a unit: an association that kept fees flat for years by voting to skip reserve contributions can no longer do that. If dues on an older, tall Orlando condo still look low in late 2026, the association either finished its structural math and happens to be well funded, which is rare, or the bill hasn't arrived at your unit yet.
A quiet fee on a 30-year-old condo tower isn't evidence of good management anymore. It's evidence you haven't seen the SIRS.
The Villa Medici association, registered as a Florida nonprofit corporation since January 2006 at 5172 Conroy Road, wasn't dealing with a hurricane bill or a collapsed parking deck. According to the lawsuit covered by Hoodline, the board tried to push the assessment through with a notice that skipped the mailing timeline the statute requires, then told owners the charge had already been approved before the vote actually happened. Owners are now seeking financial records and asking a court to remove the board entirely.
This is a governance failure layered on top of a financial one, and it's worth separating the two because both show up in the paperwork you can request before you ever make an offer. House Bill 1021, in effect since July 2024, gives owners real teeth here: criminal penalties for board members who willfully withhold records, and a requirement that boards solicit multiple bids for any contract over $2,500 that carries a potential conflict of interest. Villa Medici owners are leaning on exactly that law in court.
None of this means the building is uninsurable or unsellable forever. It means a buyer who skips the document review inherits a dispute they didn't create.
Not every Orlando HOA fee is answering the same question, and mixing them up is where a lot of buyers lose the thread. Chapter 718, which covers condominiums, is where SIRS and milestone inspections live. Chapter 720, which covers most homeowners associations in single-family and townhome communities, doesn't carry that structural reserve mandate. So the fee at Baldwin Park, where dues run roughly $2,000 a year for lake access, several pools, parks, and a walkable center, is pricing lifestyle and shared amenities. The fee at Isleworth, closer to $13,500 a year, is pricing 24-hour gated security and a private country club separate from the neighborhood's own amenities. Two very different products, both fairly described by their dues.
A condo fee in a 3+ story building built before the mid-1990s is pricing something else entirely: whether the roof, the plumbing stack, and the parking deck have a funded plan behind them. That's not a number you can read off the listing. It's a number you have to request.
Florida's disclosure rules work in your favor here, but only if you use the window they give you. Once you're under contract, a buyer typically has a set number of business days after actually receiving the association's governing documents, not the contract date, to cancel without penalty if something in the paperwork is wrong. The smarter move is asking for the documents before you write the offer at all.
Request these five things from the listing agent or the association directly:
If the association can't produce these within a few business days of your request, treat that as an answer.
New construction has a real, quantifiable edge on this specific point. A building delivering in Orlando in 2026 or 2027 starts its reserve obligation at zero. The structural components are new, under warranty, and the first SIRS gets written against a clean slate rather than thirty years of deferred maintenance. That's not an argument that resale condos are a bad idea. It's an argument that the math changes by roughly the age and height of the building, and that math now shows up in your closing costs whether or not anyone mentions it during the tour.
There's also a financing angle worth knowing before you fall for a unit. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have tightened condo project reviews since 2022, and buildings flagged for significant deferred maintenance, missing reserves, or a missing milestone inspection can land on a non-warrantable list. That knocks out conventional 30-year financing, which shrinks your buyer pool the day you decide to sell, not just the day you buy.
If you're weighing a condo against a single-family home anywhere in the Orlando area, our companion piece on Orlando Luxury Condo Or Home? How To Decide walks through the lifestyle side of that choice. This piece is about the paperwork side, and in 2026, the paperwork side decides more deals than it used to.
Does this reserve law apply to my HOA if I'm looking at a single-family home in a gated community? No. SIRS and milestone inspections apply to condominiums under Chapter 718, specifically buildings three stories or taller. Most single-family and townhome HOAs fall under Chapter 720, which has its own reserve disclosure rules but no SIRS mandate.
What if a special assessment was already approved before I close on the unit? An assessment that's been properly voted and recorded typically follows the unit, meaning you inherit the remaining balance unless the contract negotiates a credit or the seller pays it off before closing. Get this in writing before you remove your inspection contingency.
How do I confirm whether a building's SIRS is actually done, not just promised? Associations with 25 or more units are now required to post governing documents, budgets, and reserve studies to a secure site or app under HB 1021. If a listing agent can't point you to it, ask the association directly through Florida's DBPR Division of Condominiums, which tracks milestone and SIRS compliance by association.
A condo fee used to be a simple number to compare across buildings. In 2026, it's a question that only the paperwork can actually answer. If you're weighing a specific Orlando building and want a second set of eyes on what the reserve study and assessment history actually say before you write an offer, Shirley Jones is happy to look at it with you. Schedule a free consultation and bring the documents.
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