After a Condo Water Loss, the Association Controls the Rebuild

In a Florida residential condominium, responsibility splits in two, and the half people skip is the first one. Chapter 718 makes the condo association the party that undertakes reconstruction after a property loss, and the route the statute names for a unit owner to take on part of that work is the board's prior written consent. So condominium water damage responsibility begins with who is allowed to do the work, not with who pays for it.

That order matters: the two questions have different answers and different decision-makers. The statute names the association as the default builder and the board as the gatekeeper. Who bears the cost runs through the recorded declaration, the document that created the condominium and divides responsibility inside it, plus the two policies.

What this post is not: Restoration Doctor is a restoration contractor, not a public adjuster and not a law firm. Nothing here is legal or insurance advice, and nothing here tells you what your own policy covers. It recites the Florida statute and points you at the documents and the licensed professionals who answer the rest.

The operative sentence is short. Paragraph 718.111(11)(g)1. reads: "All reconstruction work after a property loss must be undertaken by the association except as otherwise authorized in this section." The carve-out points at that section as a whole, not only at the sentence that follows it.

The next sentence names the route for a unit owner: "A unit owner may undertake reconstruction work on portions of the unit with the prior written consent of the board of administration."

Two words do the work. "Prior" puts the consent before the work, not after it. "Written" means a phone call with a manager is not the thing the statute describes. The same paragraph adds a step owners discover late: "A unit owner must obtain all required governmental permits and approvals before commencing reconstruction."

The reach is broad. The subsection "applies to every residential condominium in this state, regardless of the date of its declaration of condominium," so an association cannot answer that its building predates the rule. Paragraph (o) carves out one category: timeshare condominium associations.

The subsection uses the term reconstruction work repeatedly and never gives it a meaning, which leaves a real line to draw between emergency mitigation and the rebuild that follows. Where that line falls in a given building is for the association and its counsel, not for a contractor. The access and equipment side of that first week has its own rules, covered in what a condominium requires before restoration equipment.

Paragraph (g)1. names three things, and only three: "such work may be conditioned upon the approval of the repair methods, the qualifications of the proposed contractor, or the contract that is used for that purpose."

That is a list of permitted conditions, not a list of duties. Nothing obliges a board to grant consent, or to impose any of the three.

Read practically, each condition is a request for a document that either exists or does not. Repair methods means the written scope: what comes out, what goes back, in what sequence. Qualifications means the state license and the certificate of insurance. The contract used means the agreement itself.

That third condition meets a separate Florida rule aimed at contractors. Florida Statutes 489.147(2)(e) prohibits "providing an insured with an agreement authorizing repairs without providing a good faith estimate of the itemized and detailed cost of services and materials for repairs undertaken pursuant to a property insurance claim."

So a board reviewing "the contract that is used" is reading a document the contractor was already required to produce, line by line.

Paragraph (11)(f) reaches every property insurance policy issued or renewed on or after January 1, 2009, for the purpose of protecting the condominium, and it lists what such a policy must provide primary coverage for. Subparagraph 1. of that paragraph names "All portions of the condominium property as originally installed or replacement of like kind and quality, in accordance with the original plans and specifications."

Read that as a description of what the association's policy must contain, not as an answer about your loss. Whether a particular item at your address is covered, and under which policy, is a coverage question.

Florida Statutes 489.147(2)(d) makes "interpreting policy provisions or advising an insured regarding coverages or duties under the insured's property insurance policy" a prohibited practice for a Florida contractor who is not a licensed public adjuster. So a restoration contractor will not answer it, and should not. Read your declarations page and the recorded declaration, then put the question to your agent, a licensed public adjuster, or an attorney.

Subparagraph (f)3. states what that coverage must exclude, naming the items one by one, and closes by making that property and any insurance on it the responsibility of the unit owner. Read the subparagraph's own qualifying words together with the list. This post does not decide how far they reach:

Paragraph (11)(j) sets a default. Any portion of the condominium property the association must insure under paragraph (f), "which is damaged by an insurable event shall be reconstructed, repaired, or replaced as necessary by the association as a common expense."

Everything turns on "insurable event," which the subsection uses twice and never defines. Without one, the same paragraph sends the question to the building's own papers: responsibility falls on "the association or the unit owners … as determined by the maintenance provisions of the declaration or bylaws."

The same paragraph makes property insurance deductibles and damages above the association's coverage a common expense, then states four exceptions. The first turns on conduct.

A unit owner is responsible for repair or replacement costs not paid by insurance proceeds where the damage was "caused by intentional conduct, negligence, or failure to comply with the terms of the declaration or the rules of the association."

The paragraph then names whose conduct it means: "by a unit owner, the members of his or her family, unit occupants, tenants, guests, or invitees, without compromise of the subrogation rights of the insurer."

Chapter 718 is the floor here, not the ceiling. Paragraph (k) lets an association, by a majority of the total voting interests, "opt out of the provisions of paragraph (j) … and allocate repair or reconstruction expenses in the manner provided in the declaration as originally recorded or as amended."

Paragraph (l) gives the same option to a single condominium inside an association that operates more than one condominium. Paragraph (m) is what makes an opt-out checkable: it takes effect only "upon the date of recording of the notice in the public records by the association," and the notice must state the date of the vote and where the declaration is recorded. That is a document you can ask for by name.

Paragraph (n) adds a limit that needs no vote. The association is not obligated to pay reconstruction or repair costs for certain improvements installed by a current or former owner or by the developer. The condition is conjunctive: the improvement must benefit only the unit it was installed for and must not be part of the standard improvements the developer installed on all units as part of original construction. The same paragraph adds that it does not relieve any party of obligations regarding recovery under insurance implemented specifically for such improvements.

The exclusion list is worth reading slowly, because it is close to a list of what a restoration crew touches first in a South Florida unit.

In a Broward or Fort Lauderdale building that usually means continuous tile over its mortar bed, painted block with drywall held off it by furring strips, a base cabinet run, and a water heater closet backing onto a bathroom.

The statute draws its boundary in items, not in rooms, so an estimate organized room by room can cross that boundary inside a single line.

Paragraph (11)(g)2. addresses the money side of the same boundary. It makes unit owners responsible for the cost of reconstruction of portions for which the owner must carry property insurance, or for which the owner is responsible under paragraph (j). It adds that the cost of such work "undertaken by the association is chargeable to the unit owner and enforceable as an assessment."

Whether that reaches a particular item in your unit turns on the recorded declaration, on any opt-out under paragraph (k), and on documents this page has not seen. Ask the association for the declaration, and take the coverage half to a licensed professional.

Every item below is a request or a record, not an argument. Requests in writing produce dated answers, and dated answers are what let the association, the two carriers and a lawyer resolve the questions this post leaves open.

The contribution here is documentary. A board is being asked to approve repair methods, qualifications, or a contract, so the useful response is to hand those three things over early, in the form the building already requests.

In practice that means the license and the certificate of insurance before work starts, and a written scope with the itemized good-faith estimate attached. It also means a daily record a person who was never in the unit can follow: readings, equipment in place, dated photographs before removal.

Line-item scopes, in the same format adjusters price from, read line by line to a board and to both carriers at once.

What it does not mean is speaking for anyone. We invoice the property owner who engaged us, that party owes the invoice in full for the work performed whatever the declaration says about allocation, and we take no side between a board and a unit owner. A board's decisions are the board's to make, with the association's own counsel and insurance professionals. We cannot promise what any carrier will pay.

Coordinating multiple trades through a rebuild is its own line on an estimate. That is the subject of overhead and profit on a Florida water mitigation estimate, and the older question of allocation between units is covered in high-rise condo water damage and who pays.

Every quotation above was read in the Florida Senate's copy of the statutes on September 21, 2026, and confirmed against the Legislature's current-code copy. Statutes change. Confirm the current text before relying on it, and read your own recorded declaration alongside it.

Restoration Doctor of Miami is a water damage mitigation company, not a public adjuster. We do not prepare, file, negotiate, or settle claims, and we do not interpret policy coverage. Coverage decisions are made solely by your carrier. You are responsible for your deductible.