What is a condominium assessment? How do they work?
Condominiums each have a fee charged monthly to all owners that pays for commonly shared (everyone can use) areas or fees. This could include any utilities the association pays for, management, landscaping, cleaning, small repairs, security, condominium insurance (not to include unit insurance paid by owner), and any other fee the association may pay for.
Then there are ‘special’ assessments. These usually come when a large repair is needed. This amount could also be an insurance deductible split across owners. We have seen many of these special assessments following the Surf Side Condominium collapse in 2021. After this time all condominiums were evaluated and any needing structural repair received immediate notice. This in turn caused special assessments to be due if the HOA did not have the funds saved for such a large repair.
The assessments are typically for a high cost repair. Locally we have seen assessments as low as $800 per unit for structural reports, $3500 for one condominiums railings, and a couple of others have been as high as $30,000-$35,000 for large repairs including pools, elevators, or structural repairs. These are just some amounts I have known of personally working on our local condos. A couple of ways these are typically addressed are the owner will pay the fee, finance the fee, or sell the unit and pay the fee at closing.
When purchasing or selling a condominium there are many disclosures, along with HOA information so due diligence can be performed.