Florida Engineers Shy Away From Condo Work Amid Litigation, Liability Fears

Boards governing hundreds of thousands of aging buildings have to pay for structural evaluations to comply with the 2022 condo safety law passed in the wake of the Surfside condo tower collapse that killed 98 people.

Faced with the possibility of costly repairs, boards are pushing for the cheapest possible inspection, but many engineers — who would be liable in the event of a failure — are hesitant to perform the task at all. 

“If you're an engineer and your license is important to you, you may not want to put your license on the line to do this type of work,” said Zana Raybon, executive director of the Florida Board of Professional Engineers.

The condo safety law mandates condo owners in buildings three stories or higher and 30 years or older to fund their reserves and undergo structural evaluations every 10 years.

The law requires that a licensed structural and electrical engineer, certified by the Florida Board of Professional Engineers, or a licensed architect approved by the Florida Board of Architecture and Interior Design, perform the inspections. Engineers are required to oversee the milestone structural inspections, which assess a building’s structural integrity and life safety.

For the Structural Integrity Reserve Study, engineers inspect the building’s foundation, walls, floors and roof, along with an electrical inspection to evaluate wiring, fixtures and panels for potential hazards or code violations.

The moment an engineer signs off on any engineering documents, they accept the responsibility for their accuracy and legitimacy, according to the FBPE. 

“We are actually responsible, not only to the community, which is the building that we're inspecting, but to the municipality, who essentially delegates to us the authority of saying that the building is safe for continuing occupation or not,” said Misha Mladenovic, an engineer with Coral Gables-based m2e Consulting Engineers.

The liability they would be exposed to has become a risk engineers are increasingly aware of.

“As soon as you do the recertification, you’re on the hook,” said William O’Donnell, Miami managing principal at DeSimone Consulting Engineers.

Deerfield Beach-based Morabito Consultants, the firm that inspected Champlain Towers South before its collapse, was ordered to pay $16M to the victims of the collapse, the Miami Herald reported.

DeSimone served as the structural engineer for a nearby luxury condo, Eighty Seven Park, that was under construction in 2021 when the collapse occurred. Though it had no direct role in Champlain Towers South, DeSimone was caught in the crosshairs of litigation, partially blamed for the building's collapse due to the nearby construction. The firm agreed to pay an $8.5M settlement, the Herald reported.

Inspections used to be visual, but the responsibility of recertifying a building requires a thorough analysis, including looking at the history of the building through past permits and more hands-on material testing of the structure, O’Donnell said.

“If you’re asking me as a professional engineer, who has a responsibility to protect the public, I’m going to do as thorough an examination as I think is necessary,” he said. “That takes money.”

Typically, a rigorous inspection costs at least $35K, O’Donnell said.

Since the new law took effect, condo owners have often struggled to understand the cost and scope of the required inspections, FBPE lead investigator Wendy Anderson said.

While there hasn’t been a spike in formal complaints, she said the board receives allegations from owners who believe they are being overcharged.

“They think they are being stolen from or the engineers are lying or they're inaccurate,” Anderson said.

The board hasn't charged any engineers yet over condo recertifications, but they are still subject to disciplinary action if reports are done incorrectly, Anderson said. The FBPE is considering issuing fines to a South Florida engineer accused of performing inspections under his deceased father's license, Local 10 News reported.

The threat of a complaint or a lawsuit means engineers have become wary of working for boards they don't have a connection to.

“I’m very careful on what recertifications I do. It’s either existing clients or a referral,” O’Donnell said. “You want to be sure of the quality of the client.” 

Mladenovic said his firm rarely pursues a job if he thinks that a condo board is only focused on pricing.

His firm, m2e, loses 70% of the recertification jobs it bids for, not counting the deals it chooses not to bid on, he said.

There were early concerns that Florida wouldn’t have enough licensed architects or engineers to assess the roughly 90% of the state’s 1.6 million condo units that are 30 years or older.

In 2022, state Sen. Jason Pizzo, who represented Surfside at the time, warned that Florida’s 650 certified engineers were already in high demand for new construction and there simply wouldn’t be enough to meet the additional demand for recertifications, WLRN reported at the time.

Despite expectations that demand would surge, Mladenovic said his firm has yet to be flooded with work because condo owners are dragging their feet on completing their reserve studies.

“There's always a fight between the owners and what the engineers are trying to accomplish, and you have to have all of these meetings with the owners, and then the owners decide, ‘Well, we want a new engineer because this one costs too much,’” Anderson said. “There's just so much [work] that's thrown out.”