Key takeaways
After a Florida SIRS is delivered, the board should read it as a group, complete the formal steps (officer affidavit, owner access, state reporting, budget notice), model two or three funding scenarios per unit over ten years, and build a repair calendar for the largest components. A SIRS only protects a building when the plan behind it is funded and kept current.
- Rank components by cost and remaining life; a few items usually drive most of the funding gap.
- Reserves for SIRS components cannot be waived, so the decision is how fast and through what mechanism to fund them.
- Owners accept a requirement they understand: explain the study, the gap and the options across several touchpoints before the adoption vote.
- Construction costs move faster than a ten-year study cycle, so update the study when projects finish or pricing changes.
Written for: HOA & condo board members, Community association managers
The report arrives as a PDF. It is sixty pages long, full of tables, and one of those tables contains a number that makes the room go quiet.
Most boards spend the first week after delivery doing one of two things: forwarding the file to everyone, or filing it somewhere safe. Neither is a plan. The report is an input. The decisions that follow are the work.
Here is the order we suggest.
Week one: read it as a board, not as a file
Before anyone presents anything to owners, the directors should sit with the study for a working session. Three questions organize the meeting.
1. What does the study say we owe, and by when? Find the funding schedule. Note the annual contribution the report recommends and compare it to what the current budget collects. That difference is the headline.
2. Which components drive the number? In most buildings, a small number of items account for most of the cost: a roof, a waterproofing envelope, a plumbing riser, a window replacement. Rank the items by cost and by remaining life. The top three usually tell the story.
3. What did the inspector see that the numbers do not show? Read the narrative sections, not only the spreadsheets. Condition notes, photographs and recommended further investigation often matter more than a line item.
Week two: handle the formal obligations
The law attaches specific steps to receiving the study. Confirm each with your association attorney and keep a record.
- Officer affidavit. An officer or director must sign an affidavit acknowledging receipt of the completed SIRS (the Division publishes the affidavit as DBPR Form 6000-11). Keep it with the association’s official records.
- Owner access, within 45 days. Distribute a copy of the study to each unit owner, or deliver notice that it is available for inspection and copying on written request. Use a delivery method your documents and the statute permit (mail, personal delivery, or electronic transmission to owners who consented).
- State reporting, within 45 days. File the SIRS report with the Division of Condominiums through the association’s online account, confirming the study was completed and provided or made available to owners.
- Budget. The proposed budget must align with the study’s funding plan. If it does not, the association has to obtain an updated study before adopting that budget.
Put the dates in a shared calendar. A missed notice period can invalidate an otherwise correct budget.
Weeks three to six: decide how you will fund it
This is where boards spend most of their time, and most of their disagreements.
Reserves for SIRS components cannot be waived or reduced by owner vote. So the question is no longer whether to fund. It is how fast and by what mechanism. The realistic options, sometimes combined:
- Raise regular assessments to the level the funding schedule requires.
- Phase the increase over a few budget cycles, provided you stay within what the statute and your counsel say is compliant.
- Borrow to cover accumulated shortfalls, using a loan or line of credit. Approving a special assessment, line of credit or loan for SIRS reserves takes a majority vote of the total voting interests. Once secured, the money must be immediately available to the board without further approval, the borrowing appears in the annual financial statement, and debt service becomes a permanent line in the budget.
- Levy a special assessment for a defined, near-term project, ideally paired with a funding plan for the components that follow it.
- Pool reserves where the law permits (SIRS components may be pooled only with other SIRS components), so that the combined balance is tested against the combined need.
A useful discipline: model each option as a monthly cost per unit over ten years, not as a one-year number. Owners can compare those. They struggle to compare a lump sum with a percentage.
Week six onward: communicate before the vote
Owners react to surprise more than to cost. A board that introduces the study, the gap and the plan in one meeting will hear anger. A board that introduces them across three touchpoints will hear questions.
A sequence that works:
- A short written summary of what the study is, why it is required, and where the building stands. Two pages, no jargon.
- An open owner session where the preparer or an advisor can answer technical questions.
- The draft budget with two or three funding scenarios, each showing the monthly effect per unit type.
- The adoption meeting, where the outcome should feel like a conclusion rather than an announcement.
Say plainly what the law requires and what is the board’s choice. Owners will accept a constraint they understand. They resent a decision that appears arbitrary.
Do not skip: the repair calendar
A funded reserve is a promise. A repair calendar is how you keep it.
Take the top five components from your ranking and assign each a target year, an owner (usually the manager), and the next action: an engineering assessment, a request for proposals, a vendor walk-through. Keep the calendar with the reserve schedule. Whenever the board reviews one, it reviews the other.
Mind the independence rule. A professional who bids to prepare the study must disclose in writing any intent to bid on the work it recommends, and a bidder on that work may not have a direct or indirect interest in the preparer, or be a relative of someone who does, unless disclosed in writing. Contracts made without the disclosure are voidable. Build the check into your RFP template.
Treat the study as a living document
A SIRS reflects conditions on the day of inspection and costs on the day of pricing. Construction cost inflation does not wait for the next cycle. A roof that was priced at one figure in the report may cost materially more by the time you bid it.
Boards that keep the study updated, adjusting for completed work, changed conditions and current pricing, make better decisions in year five than boards that reread the original PDF. That is the premise behind our Living Reserve Study®.
A one-page checklist to take to your next meeting
- ☐ Funding gap identified (current contribution vs. recommended)
- ☐ Top five components ranked by cost and remaining life
- ☐ Affidavit signed and filed
- ☐ Study distributed (or notice sent) to owners within 45 days
- ☐ Statement filed with the Division of Condominiums within 45 days
- ☐ Two to three funding scenarios modeled per unit over ten years
- ☐ Owner communication calendar set
- ☐ Repair calendar drafted with owners and next actions
- ☐ Update schedule for the study agreed
Need a second set of eyes on your SIRS, or a way to model funding scenarios your board can present with confidence? Schedule a conversation with the SmartProperty team.
