Owning a condo has become harder after Surfside. Here's what to know before you buy
But buying a condo — especially one that's decades old — feels like a risky proposition after the state imposed stricter maintenance and financial reserve requirements in response to the 2021 Surfside building collapse. The new safeguards are critical. The Champlain Towers South condo that fell in the middle of the night, killing 98 people, is a tragedy that must never happen again.
The increased maintenance costs associated with the new laws have resulted in a softening condo market.It also leaves prospective buyers in a tough spot, as they consider both safety and finances, wondering: Will I be hit with large special assessments and higher associations fees after I move in?
These are important considerations given that Miami-Dade's condo inventory skews older. Of the 315,600 condo units in the county, 48% of them are at least 30 years old, according to a 2024 report compiled with data from the Florida Division of Condominiums, Timeshares and Mobile Homes. That 30-year mark is important because that's when the new laws require so-called milestone structural inspections to make sure buildings are safe, inspections that also are needed every 10 years thereafter.
Ryan Poliakoff, a condo association lawyer, told the Herald Editorial Board that he hasn't seen restoration projects in older buildings that cost less than $5 million total. For an individual condo unit owner, that could mean a sudden bill for thousands in maintenance costs in the form of a special assessment.
The Legislature this year gave associations more flexibility in meeting the new state requirements. But the long-term commitment of living in a condo still is more complex than before Surfside. That doesn't mean buying a condo is a bad idea, especially with prices dropping and expected to drop further, according to condo analyst Peter Zalewski.
Still, here are some things you need to know first:
Know before you sign: This is important if you're buying a 'vintage' condo — that's what Zalewski calls units that are at least 30 years old: First, the condo association must have completed the 30-year milestone inspection, if applicable, as well as a 'Structural Integrity Reserve Study' signed by an engineer, which is required by law every 10 years to determine the necessary reserve funds for future repairs and replacements. If this hasn't happened yet, then you'll be 'rolling the dice,' Zalewski said, as you can expect special assessments in the future. Or, you 'really need to negotiate' the selling price to make up for future expenses, he said. One thing to know about special assessments: If a building has 'gotten hit with a special assessment, understand that is the first special assessment. There are going to be additional ones,' Zalewski told Community News in May.What to ask: Poliakoff said buyers should ask for the condo association's budget (check to see if reserves have been kept, which is now required under the law); the building's maintenance history and the last time it underwent concrete restoration; and whether there are any planned special assessments or discussions about it. The seller might not disclose an assessment that hasn't been approved, so it's important to 'ask around' if you can.Specifically: Ask for an 'estoppel letter,' which must include an itemized list of all special assessments and other money owed by the seller.What to look for: Poliakoff advises walking around the building. Not every structural problem is visible to the naked eye, but look for signs of concrete spalling, which happens when reinforced steel rods known as rebar in a building's support beams rust and expand, a common consequence water intrusion. That visible results may be chunks of concrete missing from external walls, he said.If the building has a garage: Check to see if there are formations hanging from the ceilings like a cave's stalactites, which can signal water intrusion, Poliakoff said. Pay closer attention to garages that are located underneath a pool, as was the case with the Surfside building, because they are especially vulnerable to water intrusion.
These are just general tips and each purchase will require personalized professional advice. But the message is: Do your homework before you buy and understand the financial risks of condo living post Surfside.
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Miami Herald
4 days ago
- Miami Herald
Miami-Dade checks to the A3 Foundation are under scrutiny. One was just returned
After the A3 Foundation secured more than $1 million from Miami-Dade, the county is getting some of that money back. A $200,000 check issued on July 8 to the politically connected charity was left at a front desk in County Hall last week, a top Miami-Dade administrator said Thursday. The check was never cashed. 'It came in an envelope with my name on it,' said David Clodfelter, Miami-Dade's budget director. The refunded dollars offer the latest mystery in the A3 saga, which started with a Miami Herald article on July 19 questioning how the obscure charity had managed to secure nearly $2 million in public money from the state of Florida and Miami-Dade County and was on the verge of getting millions more from a county parks contract. Formed in the fall of 2023, the A3 Foundation still lists its headquarters in a West Miami townhouse. As of Friday afternoon, its website had no contact information and non-working links on its projects page. While the website does not list A3's leadership, state records show the charity's president is Francisco Petrirena. He works full-time as chief of staff to Miami City Manager Art Noriega. The A3 Foundation first attracted public attention when the Herald reported on last-minute legislation that mandated a vendor give the charity $250,000 a year through 2045. The required payment came from a 20-year management contract giving events company Loud and Live control of a portion of Tropical Park, where the firm helps put on the annual CountryFest rodeo each year. Miami-Dade commissioners approved the contract a day after Levine Cava unveiled a 2026 county budget proposal that slashes about $40 million in nonprofit grants. Herald coverage of A3 prompted Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to say that she'd block the planned payments to the charity in the Loud and Live contract and call for an audit of the charity's spending. County records show her budget office under Clodfelter pushed finance staff to process A3 checks, which were requested by the office of Miami-Dade Commission Chair Anthony Rodriguez. Rodriguez's staff used A3 as a clearinghouse for more than $1 million in tax dollars allocated to CountryFest, the springtime rodeo that's the signature event in his district. Loud and Live said it was paid by A3 for its CountryFest expenses in 2024 and 2025. Through records requests, the Herald obtained three bare-bones invoices that A3 sent to Miami-Dade requesting money for CountryFest expenses. The recently returned check suggests at least $200,000 of the taxpayer funds wasn't needed after all. But that wasn't the message from Rodriguez's staff in recent months as the chair's office pushed for the county bureaucracy to issue the check. 'Good morning David, per our conversation here is the invoice for A3 Foundation for CountryFest,' Aldo Gonzalez, a top Rodriguez aide, wrote in a May 14 email to David Livingstone, an assistant director of the county's Parks Department. 'Can you please process this invoice as soon as possible as we are trying to close out on CountryFest.' Six weeks later, the requested check still hadn't been cut, and Gonzalez pressed Clodfelter, the county's budget director, for the money. 'Need this paid,' Gonzalez emailed Clodfelter on July 3. Attached was the original A3 invoice for $200,000 — the bill that would later generate the check returned to Clodfelter's office last week. It had no receipts or details beyond: 'Payment for CountryFest 2025.' Gonzalez did not respond to a request for comment on Friday. Petrirena did not either. A lawyer for the A3 Foundation, John Priovolos, told the Herald on Friday he would look into questions about the returned check. While Clodfelter said the $200,000 check to A3 was issued and released last month, he did not provide information on who retrieved it originally, so it's not known if the $200,000 check ever physically made it to the A3 Foundation. County records show a staffer for the County Commission picked up at least one other A3 check this year, so it's possible the $200,000 check never left County Hall. County records show Miami-Dade issued about $1 million in checks to the A3 Foundation over the last two years. Paperwork behind the checks show the taxpayer funds were requested to pay for CountryFest. Behind the scenes, the administrator of the Parks Recreation and Open Spaces (PROS) Department's budget was questioning why the foundation was getting so much money for the Tropical Park event, according to emails released this week through a Herald records request. When the request for a $200,000 check to A3 got to Parks Budget Chief Angus Laney, he noted the charity had already been paid $300,000 for that year's CountryFest, held the last weekend in April. That was well over what Parks paid the charity in 2024. 'Please note that last year's payment to the A3 Foundation was $421,000. A 19% growth in compensation seems high,' Laney wrote in a May 14 email to the county budget office. Laney wasn't just managing A3 invoices for CountryFest. He wrote that Parks had also paid $200,000 to the Miami livestock company that put on the event's cattle show. If Parks paid A3 another $200,000 on top of that, the event's cost would hit $700,000 — well over the department's $500,000 budget for CountryFest. At the time, Parks was already under budget strain, with a mandate to cut costs as Levine Cava prepared a 2026 budget proposal that would cut back on department dollars for lifeguards, landscaping and athletic fields. 'PROS is currently under directive from the Mayor to come in $6.5M below our budgeted subsidy for the current fiscal year,' Laney wrote Gonzalez, the policy and legislative director for Rodriguez, on March 11. On Friday, Clodfelter, the county budget director, released a summary of how Miami-Dade paid for CountryFest this year. He said that in addition to money from Parks and allocations from county commissioners, Miami-Dade tapped promotional budgets for Miami International Airport and PortMiami. If the $200,000 check had been cashed, Clodfelter said, money from those county-owned facilities would have covered the expense. As a result, the check would not have impacted the Parks budget. When he sent the email raising budget concerns, Laney was pushing back on Gonzalez's request for the initial $300,000 check to A3. Laney said he only had $250,000 available for the charity's CountryFest expenses. 'If we were not under that mandate, I might be able to absorb the $50K in question (though my budget is already very lean), but under the current constraints, I cannot approve payment of the $300K invoice until I have access to $50K of additional funding,' Laney wrote. The emails released by Parks this week don't show how the $50,000 gap was resolved for the $300,000 check that was issued to A3 on April 4. County records show that check was cashed. Weeks later, pressure was building on Parks to OK the second A3 check for 2025. 'I need to know if you are going to be able to process this invoice,' Clodfelter, the county's budget chief, wrote in a May 14 email to Maria Nardi, then the Parks director. There's no record of a response from Nardi, but the $200,000 check wasn't issued until early July. On Thursday, Clodfelter said the un-cashed A3 check that was returned last week can no longer be cashed. 'It was returned,' Clodfelter said. 'And I have canceled it.'
Miami Herald
5 days ago
- Miami Herald
‘Criminals in power': Members of Congress react to news of Cuban military's secret hoard
Cuban American Republican members of Congress from Miami said they will work to freeze Cuban government assets abroad and put more pressure on foreign governments helping the regime in Havana, after a Miami Herald investigation revealed that the Cuban military has hoarded billions of dollars sitting in unknown bank accounts. The Herald obtained secret accounting documents from GAESA, the conglomerate run by Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, showing that it had $18 billion in current assets in March last year, of which $14.5 billion were deposited in unidentified bank accounts and GAESA's financial institutions. The Herald's reporting raises questions about the government's narrative blaming the U.S. embargo as the exclusive cause of the country's severe economic crisis and the Cuban military's role in the ongoing humanitarian crisis. GAESA runs businesses in several sectors, including tourism, banking, trade and retail, and can tap into many of the island's revenue streams in foreign currency. The military conglomerate and several of its companies are under U.S. sanctions--meaning their assets in the U.S., if any, are frozen--but even so, it has managed to generate billions in revenue, the documents show. GAESA's financial statements obtained by the Herald show the conglomerate made $2.1 billion in net profits during the first quarter of 2024 and $7.2 billion during the first eight months of 2023, all while the island's electrical grid collapsed repeatedly and the government asked the United Nations for humanitarian aid to provide milk to young children. Reacting to the revelations, Republican U.S. Rep. Carlos Giménez, said he would work with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also a Cuban American, to 'hold the regime and its accomplices accountable.' 'The regime in Cuba is not only murderous and cruel, but profoundly corrupt,' Giménez told the Herald. 'The dictatorship is quick to blame U.S. policy for its woes, but it has billions of dollars tucked away in banks while the Cuban people suffer. These funds were stolen from the Cuban people, and we will use all the diplomatic and legal tools available to freeze the regime's assets and shame complicit foreign governments who profit off the continued oppression of the Cuban nation.' To implement a recent presidential memorandum, U.S. agencies are expected to issue regulations that would allow imposing secondary sanctions on foreign companies engaging in transactions with Cuban military-owned entities. U.S. Rep Mario Díaz-Balart said a bill he introduced last month to fund the State Department and other foreign operations for fiscal year 2026 would deny U.S. aid to governments or entities engaging financially with military-run entities in Cuba. 'While the regime in Havana blames the embargo, secret records show the Cuban military is swimming in cash,' Díaz-Balart said on a publication on X. 'My Appropriations bill makes sure not a dime from the U.S. taxpayer supports them and blocks aid to anyone bankrolling or doing business with the regime's oppressive security forces — full stop.' U.S Rep. María Elvira Salazar took issue with the Cuban government's denunciations of the U.S. embargo, which Cuban officials say denies the government the resources to buy foo and medicines and maintain the power grid. 'Cuba's real blockade is the Cuban dictatorship,' she said in an X publication commenting on the Herald story. 'While the regime blames the U.S. for blackouts, hunger, and medicine shortages, it's sitting on billions through its military empire, GAESA. That money isn't used to feed the people or fix the grid, it's used to suppress them.' 'The Castro mafia doesn't need help, they need to be eradicated from power and held accountable,' she added. 'Cubans' suffering is not caused by the embargo. It's caused by the criminals in power.' While that sort of rhetoric coming from Miami politicians usually prompts a reaction on government-controlled media in Havana, the Cuban government has been conspicuously silent. The Cuban government has also not responded to the information reported by the Herald about GAESA's finances. GAESA's finances are treated as military secrets, are not shared with other ministries or government agencies and are outside the purview of the government's comptroller, who is not authorized to audit them. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not reply to a request for comment for the story, nor the country's government comptroller, and the accounts of senior diplomats who actively comment on U.S-Cuba relations or revelations published in U.S. media have been muted on the subject. On Tuesday, when the Herald published the investigation, Cuba's leader Miguel Díaz-Canel tweeted about sports, the birthday of a renowned Cuban choir director and the war in Gaza.
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Miami Herald
6 days ago
- Miami Herald
These companies appear in secret documents of Cuba's largest military conglomerate
A Miami Herald investigation that revealed that a Cuban military conglomerate is holding billions in secret dollar reserves amid the ongoing collapse of the economy shows the island's armed services have created a network large of companies that tap into almost every string of foreign revenue entering the island.. Secret financial documents obtained by the Herald show that GAESA, the military's umbrella company that has a multitude of subsidiaries, had $18 billion in current assets as of March 2024, most of it deposited in unknown bank accounts. The Herald obtained more than 20 financial statements from GAESA's internal accounting system for March and August 2024. The Herald also obtained a PowerPoint presentation with financial information from Cimex's, the largest holding company under the umbrella. Financial statements for March and August last year, titled 'Balance de datos' (Data Balance) and 'Estado de Resultados por Conceptos '(roughly translated as income statement by concept), identify 25 companies in the conglomerate, grouped into three categories: state enterprises, 'international economic associations,' and mipymes, the Spanish acronym for micro, small, and medium enterprises. The Cuban government uses the 'international economic associations' category to authorize contracts with foreign firms to manage Cuban hotels, exploit natural resources and similar partnerships. It may involve the creation of new companies in a 'joint venture' or just a contract for services. Cimex's presentation mentioned six of its companies, though most were not named. Some of the companies named in the documents obtained by the Herald have not been previously identified as being part of GAESA. That includes Aries S.A., the company that operates the cruise terminal in Havana, which was used by several cruise companies taking U.S. travelers to the island between 2016 and 2019. Cimex is believed to be the island's largest commercial corporation, with businesses in several sectors including international trade, retail, tourism, banking, transportation, logistics and real estate among others. According to a 2020 research paper authored by a Cimex analyst, the holding had 41 enterprises at the time. It also operated 668 gas stations around the country in 2020, according to the declaration of its legal director, Mali Suris Valmaña, in a U.S. court case involving a lawsuit filed by Exxon against Cimex. In her declaration, Valmaña spilled the beans regarding Cimex's true ownership: the Cuban company is owned by Corporación CIMEX, S.A, registered in Panama. GAESA and many of its companies, including Cimex, are under U.S. sanctions, though several mentioned in the documents are not. Here is the list of the companies named in the documents obtained by the Herald: Monte Barreto, a real estate company that owns and operates the Miramar Trade Center, an office and retail building complex in Havana in a joint venture with Ceiba Investments Ltd, a company registered in the Isle of Guernsey, a tax haven. Azul Inmobiliaria, a real estate company that manages condominiums in partnership with an Italian company, BD International. Logística Hotelera del Caribe (LHC), a joint venture based at the special development zone in Mariel that sells food and supplies to hotels in Cuba. Complejo de Museos Históricos Militares, (Military History Museum Complex), an enterprise that manages the Museum of Revolution, the Morro Castle and the Cabaña fortress in de Aceite Ecasol (Ecasol Oil Marketing Company), a cooking oil commercialization company. Comercializadora de Aceite Ecasol (Ecasol Oil Marketing Company), a cooking oil commercialization de Servicios Generales de la Marina (Maritime General Services Company). The Herald could not find public information about this company. Empresa de Servicios Ingenieros Dirección Integrada de Proyectos Mariel (Mariel Integrated Project Management Engineering Services Company), a company handling port, logistics, infrastructure and building projects at the special development zone in Inmobiliaria Almest, a real estate company investing in Importadora Tecnotex, (Technical Products Importer and Exporter Company, also known as Tecnoimport), a company mired in an alleged corruption scandal in TRD-Caribe, one of the island's largest hard currency stores S.A., an airline flying Universales S.A., a logistics company that handles operations at the port of Antex S.A., (previously known as Corporación Antillana de Exportaciones, SA), a corporation contracting doctors and managing businesses in S.A. (also known as Empresa Comercializadora y Exportadora de Productos Agropecuarios y Agroindustriales, S.A.) is an importer and exporter of agricultural products, which functions as an intermediary for private enterprises importing food y Extracción de Petróleo y Gas S.A (Oil and Gas Exploration and Extraction S.A.). The Herald could not find public information about a company with this name. A similarly named company (Unión de Exploración, Perforación y Extracción de Petróleo) merged with Union del Combustible in 1992 to create CUPET, Cuba's main oil de Turismo Gaviota S.A., GAESA's flagship tourism companyInmobiliaria Caribe S.A., a real estate company providing 'rental services in prime areas of the capital,' according to its Facebook Marítimos S.A. (Maritime Services S.A.). The Herald could not find public data about a company with this name. Cuba's Communist Party newspaper Granma reported last year that a new Cuban company named Servicios Marítimos Mariel S.A. operating at the special development zone in Mariel, would offer customs services, processing of manifests and supplies to ships and crews at the port of Automotores S.A., a company importing and selling cars and car de Auditoría S.A., a company providing auditing services with its main office in Miramar, in a company that operates the cruise terminal in the port of Havana. It was previously believed to be affiliated with GEMAR, a holding company part of the Ministry of Importadora y Exportadora de Productos Técnicos (Technical Products Importer and Exporter Company, also known as Tecnoimport), a company sued by Russian truckmaker Ural for Moncada, a new cement factory built last year in Santiago de Cuba. The administration of the plant was offered as an investment project in 2021, according to a document by the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment. Agencia Importadora Caribe Surl, an importer Grafo Caribe Surl, an advertising company. Both are linked to TRD Caribe, the store chain, the documents show. Cimex Mariel, a company based in the Mariel Special Development Zone that produces and sells coffee under the brands Cubita and Financiera CIMEX, a company handling remittances and credit cards transactions in Cimex S.A., a real estate S.A. ( Zona Especializada de Logística y Comercio, ZELCOM S.A), a free trade zone near Tarará S.A., a lodging and rentals S.A., an information technology company offering 'applications, technology and network solutions,' according to its profile on Facebook.
