In July 2026, Florida’s Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability published Report 26-04, Milestone Inspection Reporting Data 2024 and 2025. It is the first statewide look at Florida milestone inspection data, and read as a board member or a manager, the most important line in it is not one of the numbers.
OPPAGA reported that it identified several limitations in the Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s collection of the 2024 and 2025 milestone inspection reports, and recommended that DBPR consider giving local enforcement agencies guidance on submitting data through a webinar or guided tutorial.
The Legislature’s own research office, in other words, flagged limitations in the state’s own dataset. That raises a practical question for your association right now, while the fix is still ahead of us.
What the Florida milestone inspection data shows
From OPPAGA’s published summary:
Building officials reported 8,736 completed phase one milestone inspections and 1,575 completed phase two milestone inspections.
They reported granting 1,587 extensions of initial milestone inspection completion deadlines, and 94 percent of those extensions went to coastal counties and municipalities.
Phase two inspections produced 903 permit applications for identified repairs. Estimated values of those repairs ranged from under $1,000 to $30 million, and the common repair types were concrete, electrical, and structural.
Milestone inspections identified 30 buildings in 2024 and 24 buildings in 2025 as unsafe or uninhabitable. OPPAGA reported that most of those buildings were not vacated.
We will leave the engineering commentary to engineers. Prestar does not perform milestone inspections or structural integrity reserve studies. But that last finding says something a board can use: an inspection produces a determination, and what happens after that depends on people and paperwork moving through a local system.
The state’s records are not your records
If the Legislature’s research arm is reporting limitations in how Florida milestone inspection data was collected statewide, no board should treat a state or local database as proof of its own compliance position. That is not an accusation. It is simply not what that dataset was built to do.
The better news is that Chapter 718 already put the burden where it belongs, and it was specific about it.
What Florida law says you have to hold
Under Florida Statute 718.111(12), your association’s official records include the inspection reports described in ss. 553.899 and 718.301(4)(p), along with any other inspection report relating to a structural or life safety inspection of the condominium property. Those must be kept for 15 years after receipt. Structural integrity reserve studies must be kept for at least 15 years after completion. All current insurance policies of the association are official records too.
The statute also puts a clock and a price on producing them. Records must be made available within 10 working days of a written request, and failure to do so creates a rebuttable presumption that the association willfully failed to comply. Minimum damages are $50 per calendar day for up to 10 days, beginning on the 11th working day. Responding with a checklist of what was and was not made available creates a rebuttable presumption that you did comply — and that checklist has to be kept for 7 years.
One detail boards often miss: renters, not just owners, have the right to inspect the declaration, the bylaws and rules, and those inspection reports. And associations managing 25 or more units have to post specified documents to a members-only area of a website or app within 30 days of receiving or creating them.
None of that depends on a building department submitting anything to Tallahassee. It depends on your file.
The one number nobody else will produce for you
The same statute governs your insurance valuation. Under 718.111(11)(a)2., the amount of adequate coverage may be based on the replacement cost of the property as determined by an independent insurance appraisal or an update of a previous appraisal — and that replacement cost must be determined at least once every 3 years, at minimum.
That is the 36-month clock, and it is the rare obligation entirely inside the board’s control. No agency reports it. No local official submits it. You commission the appraisal, you receive it, you keep it with the official records, and the clock resets. We covered the mechanics in more detail in Florida’s 36-Month Condo Insurance Appraisal Rule (HB 913).
Four things to check this quarter
Date your last valuation. Find the actual report and the actual date. If it is past three years, or you have re-roofed, re-clad, or renovated since, the number in it is no longer your number.
Ask what your limits are based on. If they trace to a carrier’s software estimate or last year’s figure plus an inflation bump, that is not an independent insurance appraisal.
Confirm the inspection reports are in your official records. Not in the engineer’s inbox, not on the building department’s server. Yours, filed, with a receipt date, because the retention clock runs 15 years from receipt.
Build the checklist before someone asks. One page listing each required record, where it lives, and its date. The statute rewards you for producing a checklist; having one ready also turns a records request from a fire drill into a photocopy.
Where Prestar fits
We do one thing: independent insurance appraisals for Florida condominium associations and HOAs. Replacement cost valuations built to satisfy F.S. 718.111(11) and to hold up when a carrier reads them closely, because these days they do. We work with boards and management companies statewide, and we are happy to walk through what an insurance appraisal costs before you commit to anything.
If nobody on your board can name the date of your last appraisal, that is your answer. Reach out and we will help you find out where you stand.
Florida milestone inspection data: frequently asked questions
Does Report 26-04 mean my building’s milestone inspection was not filed? No. OPPAGA identified limitations in how Florida milestone inspection data was collected for 2024 and 2025 statewide. It says nothing about any individual building. Ask your local building department about yours, and keep a copy of the response.
Does an insurance appraisal satisfy the milestone inspection requirement? No. Different documents, different professionals. A milestone inspection under s. 553.899 assesses structural condition. An insurance appraisal establishes replacement cost for coverage purposes. Most associations need both.
How long do we have to keep our inspection reports? Fifteen years after receipt, under s. 718.111(12)(a)15. Structural integrity reserve studies are also kept at least 15 years.
Our premium went down this year. Do we still need a new appraisal? Yes. The three-year requirement in 718.111(11) does not track the market, and a softening market is exactly when an outdated insured value quietly becomes a coinsurance problem.
