Florida condo boards · milestone repairs

The 365-Day Repair Clock, Explained

Updated September 2026 · 7 minute read

The day your association receives its phase two milestone inspection report, a statutory clock starts. Florida's milestone inspection law, section 553.899 of the Florida Statutes, says that when a phase two report identifies substantial structural deterioration requiring repair, those repairs must be commenced within 365 days after receiving the report. Miss it without proof that repairs are scheduled or underway, and the statute directs the local enforcement agency to review whether the building is unsafe for human occupancy.

That sentence is doing a lot of work, and most boards hear about it exactly once — in the cover email from the engineer — and then lose track of what it actually requires. Here is the clock in plain terms: when it starts, what stops it, and where boards quietly burn six of the twelve months.

When the clock starts

Not at the inspection. Not when the engineer finishes the draft. The trigger in the statute is receipt of the phase two report — the sealed report that identifies substantial structural deterioration, describes its extent, and identifies recommended repairs. The date your association received that report is day zero. Put it in the minutes; every later conversation with the building department starts from it.

A phase one report that found no substantial structural deterioration starts no repair clock — there is nothing to repair. The clock is a phase two consequence.

What "commence repairs" means

The statute requires repairs to be commenced — not completed — within the 365 days, and what it asks boards to show is proof that repairs have been scheduled or have commenced. In practice, local building departments look for concrete evidence: a signed construction contract, a permit application for the repair scope, mobilization on site. A board that can show a permit application and an executed contract at day 365 is in a very different conversation with its building official than a board that can show three unsigned proposals.

Where the twelve months actually go

Three hundred sixty-five days sounds generous until you lay a real repair project against it. A typical sequence, with typical durations:

The stage boards control least well is the fourth one. Drawings take the time they take, and bidding has a calendar. But bid review stretches — from weeks into months — when the three bids that come back don't match and nobody on the board can make them comparable. One bidder excludes railing replacement, another carries waterproofing as an allowance, a third prices everything, and the numbers sit hundreds of thousands of dollars apart. Meetings get tabled. A director asks for a fourth bid. The clock runs.

That specific problem — three non-comparable bids and a deadline — is solvable in an afternoon with a leveling exercise. We've written up the method step by step in how to compare milestone repair bids that don't match, and the case for why the lowest number is so often not the cheapest bid in the $70,620 mistake.

The other deadlines running alongside

The repair clock is not the only statutory timer an association is on. Within 45 days of receiving the inspection report, the association must distribute the inspector-prepared summary to every unit owner — by mail or delivery, by electronic transmission where owners have consented, by posting in a conspicuous place on the property, and on the association's website if it is required to have one. That obligation applies regardless of what the report found. And associations required to complete a structural integrity reserve study face the statutory backstop of December 31, 2026 — a deadline the reserve-study statute states may not be exceeded.

How big is this, statewide?

Florida's legislative research office, OPPAGA, reported in July 2026 that 8,736 phase one milestone inspections had been completed statewide, 1,575 buildings had gone on to phase two, and 903 permit applications had been filed for required repairs — at costs ranging from under $1,000 to $30 million per building. Fifty-four buildings had been deemed unsafe by local officials. Each of those phase two reports started its own 365-day clock on the day an association received it.

The money is moving too: the average Florida milestone-repair permit value jumped from roughly $337,000 to $496,000 in a single year. Boards racing the clock are making six- and seven-figure award decisions on compressed timelines — which is precisely when non-comparable bids get compared anyway, and the expensive mistakes described in our other articles get made.

What a board should do this month

If your association has received a phase two report: write the receipt date into the minutes and count forward 365 days. Ask your building department in writing what proof of commencement it expects. Get the repair scope and bid documents moving — the early stages are the cheap place to recover time. And when the bids come back, level them the same week they arrive rather than letting the comparison drift across three board meetings. The clock does not pause while the board argues about numbers that were never comparable in the first place.

Integrated Development Advisory LLC is an independent information publisher and is not an engineer, architect, reserve specialist, community association manager, or law firm. This article and the kit are strictly administrative — arithmetic and organization. They do not opine on structural adequacy, required reserves, or statutory compliance. Verify current requirements with your association's licensed professionals.