Running a Major Repair or Restoration Project: What a Condominium Board Has to Get Right

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

• Published September 25, 2026
• Reviewed by Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA, September 26, 2026
• Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026
• Applies to: Condominiums

A major repair or restoration project is not a construction problem the board hands to a contractor. It is a governance project that happens to involve concrete. The board's job is to define the scope with an engineer, confirm whether an owner vote is required before work starts, fund it on a schedule that matches the payment schedule, and keep control of the money and the paper record while the work runs. Get that sequence right and the construction usually takes care of itself.

Define the project before you hire anyone

Most projects that go badly were defined badly at the start. The first question is not who to hire. It is what the association is doing, and why. The driver usually comes from one of four places, and each produces a different project.

A phase two milestone inspection report creates a repair project with a statutory deadline: section 553.899 requires the repairs it identifies to commence within 365 days after the association receives the report. A structural integrity reserve study creates a funding plan, not a repair obligation. An insurance adjuster's scope creates a restoration limited to covered damage. An owner complaint about spalling balconies creates an investigation.

Write the driver down. It settles three questions boards otherwise answer after the contract is signed: whether the work needs an owner vote, what the building department will require, and what the association may spend. It also sets an honest schedule.

Assembling the team

Three seats have to be filled before the project has a shape, and they are filled in order.

• The engineer of record. A Florida-licensed structural or envelope engineer who investigates the condition, designs the repair, writes the specification, prepares bid documents, evaluates bids and administers construction. One continuous engagement, not four.
• The owner's representative. Optional on a small project, close to essential on a large one. The person on site when the board is not, tracking schedule and screening change order requests.
• Association counsel. Brought in at the contract stage, not after a dispute: the engineering agreement, the construction contract, the vote analysis, the assessment or loan documents.
• The general contractor. Selected last, against documents the engineer prepared, from a field the engineer helped qualify.

Boards sometimes reverse the order, hiring an engineer only to bless a proposal a contractor produced from a free assessment. That puts the party who profits from the scope in charge of writing it. Section 718.3026 requires competitive bids for a contract for materials, equipment or services exceeding 5 percent of the total annual budget including reserves, though the association need not accept the lowest bid. Professional services, emergencies and sole-source purchases are excepted. See our guide to engineering and construction contracts.

What the engineer actually owes you

The value of an engineering agreement is in the deliverables it names. A proposal to provide engineering services is not a scope. Ask for these separately:

1. A condition assessment with the method stated: visual survey, sounding, core sampling, infrared, water testing, separating what was observed from what was inferred.
2. A repair design and written specification naming materials and installation requirements, so every bidder prices the same work.
3. Bid documents with a bid form broken into line items and unit prices for quantities nobody can know until demolition opens the structure.
4. A written bid evaluation comparing bids against the specification rather than against each other's bottom lines.
5. Construction administration: site visits at a stated frequency, review of submittals and shop drawings, certification of each payment application, and review of change orders.
6. Close-out: a punch list, verification of correction, and written confirmation that the work conforms to the specification.

Item five is what boards cut to save money and most regret cutting. Without the engineer certifying each payment application, the board approves six-figure draws on the contractor's own word.

Material alteration or necessary maintenance

Section 718.113(2)(a) allows no material alteration or substantial addition to the common elements, or to real property that is association property, except in the manner provided in the declaration. If the declaration does not specify the approval procedure, 75 percent of the total voting interests must approve before the alteration is commenced. Approval afterward does not cure the defect.

Florida courts use the definition from Sterling Village Condominium, Inc. v. Breitenbach: a material alteration palpably or perceptively varies the form, shape, elements or specifications of a building from its original design or existing condition, so as to appreciably affect function, use or appearance. Cost is not the test. A $4 million concrete restoration that puts the building back as it was is not a material alteration. A $60,000 change from painted railings to glass very likely is.

Against that sits the necessary maintenance principle: where the association is carrying out repair or replacement it is obligated to perform and cannot practically make in kind, Florida decisions have generally allowed the board to proceed without a vote. The principle is real, but the statute does not state its boundaries.

Make the engineer answer element by element. Ask for a schedule of every component being repaired or replaced, what it is now, what it will be, and whether the replacement is in kind. Most lines come back identical. The few that do not go to counsel, and where the answer is close, holding the vote is cheaper than litigating it. See our discussion of material alterations.

Permitting and the 50 percent rule

Structural repair, envelope and window replacement, balcony work and roofing all require permits, and the permit set must match the engineer's specification. The rule that catches Southwest Florida associations is the substantial improvement test in flood hazard areas.

Under the National Flood Insurance Program definitions at 44 C.F.R. 59.1, carried into the Florida Building Code and into local floodplain ordinances, a substantial improvement is any repair, reconstruction, rehabilitation, addition or other improvement costing 50 percent or more of the market value of the structure before the start of construction. Substantial damage is the parallel test, measured against market value before the damage occurred.

Crossing that threshold is not a paperwork event. The building must then comply with current flood provisions, which for an older coastal structure can mean elevating or floodproofing the lowest floor, abandoning ground-level enclosures, or relocating mechanical equipment.

So get a written determination from the local floodplain administrator before bids are let. Settle how market value will be measured, because jurisdictions differ on whether they use the property appraiser's value, an independent appraisal or depreciated replacement cost, and land value is normally excluded. Check too whether the jurisdiction applies a cumulative test that adds permitted work over a lookback period. That answer comes from the local ordinance, and practice is not uniform across Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties.

Funding, phasing and owner access

Three sources of money exist and most large projects use more than one: reserves, a special assessment, and borrowing. Section 718.112(2)(f)2.c.(II) allows a loan or line of credit for milestone inspection or structural integrity reserve study work on approval of a majority of the total voting interests.

Contractors bill monthly and expect payment in thirty days. Build the collection schedule to run ahead of the draw schedule, using a delinquency rate drawn from the association's actual collection history.

Section 718.116(10) provides that special assessment funds may be used only for the specific purpose set forth in the notice, and that any excess after the purpose is completed becomes common surplus, which the board may return to owners or credit against future assessments. Describing the purpose too narrowly, by naming one building or one component, can strand the money when the engineer opens a wall. Language tracking the engineer's scope of work, including related engineering, permitting and administration costs, keeps the board out of that trap. See our guide to levying a special assessment.

Phasing is driven by money and by access. Working one building at a time spreads the cost but extends the schedule and raises the unit price. Whatever the phasing, section 718.111(5)(a) gives the association an irrevocable right of access to each unit during reasonable hours when necessary for maintenance, repair or replacement of common elements or of a portion of the unit the association maintains, and to prevent damage. Give owners written notice anyway, with dates and a contact, and log every entry. Handling the owner who refuses access is easier when the record shows repeated reasonable notice.

Paying for the work, hidden conditions and change orders

The payment process is where a board keeps or loses control. A defensible one has the same five steps every month.

1. The contractor submits a payment application on a standard form, broken into the same line items as the bid, showing the percentage of each complete.
2. The engineer reviews it against what is actually built, adjusts overstated percentages, and certifies the amount due in writing.
3. Retainage is withheld at the contract percentage and released only at close-out, after the punch list is verified complete.
4. The contractor delivers lien releases for itself and every subcontractor and supplier covered by the payment, before the check is issued.
5. The board approves the certified amount, or acts under authority delegated in advance in writing, and the approval is minuted.

Hidden conditions are not a failure of the engineer. In a forty-year-old coastal structure, nobody knows the extent of the corrosion until the concrete is opened. Manage that in the bid documents by pricing the unknown in advance: unit prices for spalled concrete removal, rebar replacement, sealant. When demolition reveals twice the anticipated quantity, the price is fixed and the argument is about quantity rather than cost.

Change orders need a rule set in the contract before the first one arrives. No work proceeds without a written change order signed by the association. The engineer reviews every request for necessity and price. The board delegates a dollar threshold to a named officer so a $3,000 item does not wait for a meeting. Verbal approvals on a job site produce most change order disputes.

Close-out and the documents you will need in five years

Close-out is treated as an afterthought and has the longest tail. Collect all of it before final payment is released:

• As-built drawings and the final approved permit set, with the certificate of completion or certificate of occupancy.
• The complete specification, every approved submittal and shop drawing, and every change order.
• Final unconditional lien releases from the contractor and every subcontractor and supplier, and a final affidavit that all of them have been paid.
• Manufacturer warranties registered in the association's name, with the registration confirmations. Coating, sealant, roofing and window warranties often require registration within a short window and are void without it.
• The contractor's workmanship warranty, with its start date documented and its expiration calendared.
• The engineer's final report and punch list verification, and photographs of conditions encountered during demolition. Those photographs are the only evidence that will ever exist of what was inside the structure.

Calendar the warranty expirations the day the project closes, and schedule a walk-through with the engineer before the shortest one runs out. A claim made two weeks after expiration is worth nothing. If the work itself proves defective, see our guide to construction defect claims.

Communicating through a long, disruptive project

Owners tolerate noise, scaffolding, closed balconies and a large assessment. What they do not tolerate is hearing about any of it from a neighbor first. Settle the communication plan before mobilization and keep it dull and predictable.

• A written update on a fixed schedule, monthly at minimum, whether or not anything happened.
• Advance notice of anything affecting a specific unit, with dates, duration and a named contact, sent a week ahead and again the day before.
• One channel of record, usually a project page on the association's website or app, so nobody relies on a forwarded email.
• A single point of contact for owner questions. Directors fielding questions individually produce four different answers to the same question.
• An honest schedule with the known risks named. Owners handle "we expect to finish in March, and here is what would push it to May" better than a date that quietly slips three times.

Board meetings during a long project may be held by video conference under section 718.112(2)(b)5., and a director participating by telephone or real-time video counts toward a quorum and may vote as if physically present. Notice must carry the hyperlink, a conference telephone number and the physical location. For associations with 25 or more units, section 718.111(12)(g)2. applies throughout, and the project's contracts and bids must be posted within 30 days.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes represents condominium boards in Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties through large repair and restoration projects, from the engineering agreement and the alteration analysis through the construction contract, the assessment or loan documents, and close-out. Bringing counsel in before the contract is signed costs far less than untangling a project already underway. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Construction page.