Article Courtesy of  The Miami Herald

By DONNA GEHRKE-WHITE

Published February 12, 2006

South Florida cities rarely shut down condos for safety or health hazards but many aging buildings still have maintenance problems.

Many boards do not know when or how to maintain buildings, says Florida Condo Ombudsman Virgil Rizzo.

Hurricane Wilma showed that last October when many older condos' roofs were blown off and their windows shattered. Some buildings had not replaced original roofs, even though the buildings were more than 20 years old.

To help boards properly maintain their buildings, Rizzo has recommended that the state require all condominiums to hire an expert every five years to inspect buildings and file a report on any deficiencies.

The proposed law, which Sen. Rene Garcia, R-Hialeah, has already agreed to sponsor, would not require boards to act on the recommendations.

But it would require boards to inform owners of the expert's findings, Rizzo says.

An outsider's recommendations might help boards persuade often reluctant owners to agree to special assessments for repairs, Rizzo says.

Boards ''want to stay popular and so they keep maintenance at a minimum,'' he says.

Many of those living in these older, deteriorating buildings are elderly people on fixed incomes, adds Jan Bergemann of Cyber Citizens for Justice, a statewide grass-roots group, www.ccfi.net.

They balk at paying extra money to fix their buildings and vote not to keep reserves, he says.

Their boards feel forced to go along. ''Otherwise they will get voted out,'' Bergemann says.

Many condo board members ''are very well-meaning,'' he adds. ``But they are not born to run a huge corporation, which some of these condos are. They have huge multimillion-dollar budgets.''