Your SIRS is the association's capital plan.

What the law requires.

Section 718.112(2)(g), Florida Statutes, requires associations with buildings three habitable stories or more to have a Structural Integrity Reserve Study performed on a recurring cycle. The study pairs two things: a visual inspection of specific building components, and a funding analysis that states what each component will cost to repair or replace, when that money will be needed, and what the association should reserve each year to have it ready. The statute also limits a board's ability to waive or shortchange reserves for these components. The days of voting to defer the roof indefinitely are largely over.

Where this law came from.

The SIRS requirement is young law, and it has already been amended. Knowing which bill a source is quoting tells you whether it is current.

• SB 4-D (2022 special session, Ch. 2022-269, Laws of Florida): Created the milestone inspection requirement at Fla. Stat. 553.899 and the structural integrity reserve study requirement at Fla. Stat. 718.112.
• SB 154 (2023 regular session, Ch. 2023-203, Laws of Florida): Revised both requirements. Among other changes, it repealed the automatic 25-year coastal trigger and replaced it with local enforcement agency discretion.
• HB 913 (2025 regular session, Ch. 2025-175, Laws of Florida): Further revised condominium and cooperative association requirements, including reserve funding flexibility tied to the milestone inspection and reserve study process.

The component list, item by item.

The statute names the components the study must cover. Read as a list of things that go wrong on a coastal building, it makes sense:

• Roof. The most predictable large expense a building has.
• Structure. Load-bearing walls and the primary structural members and systems.
• Fireproofing and fire protection systems.
• Plumbing.
• Electrical systems.
• Waterproofing and exterior painting. On the Gulf, this is not cosmetic. Paint and sealants are the envelope's first defense, and deferring them is how water reaches the structure.
• Windows and exterior doors.
• Any other item whose deferred maintenance or replacement cost exceeds the statutory threshold and affects the items above.

Each component gets three numbers: a condition assessment, a remaining useful life, and a replacement or repair cost. Those three numbers, across the whole list, are the study.

How a study becomes a funding calendar.

Here is the mechanism. If the roof has 12 years of life left and will cost a stated amount to replace, the study divides that cost across those 12 years and tells the association what to reserve annually. Do that for every component, add the columns, and the study produces a year-by-year schedule: what to collect, what will be spent, and when the big years land. A good study lets a board see, this year, that two major components come due in the same future year, and start smoothing that peak now, through phasing or planned maintenance that extends a component's life. It is how a special assessment that would surprise 300 owners becomes a line item they watched coming for a decade.

A cost book is not your coastline.

Two studies can look identical on the shelf and be very different documents. The difference is where the numbers came from. A study priced from a national cost database reflects an average building in an average place. Your building is not average. It sits in salt air, in a hurricane wind zone, in a county where restoration contractors are booked through peak season and mobilization on an occupied Gulf-front tower costs what it costs. A study priced from real local restoration work, recent bids, actual contracts, and completed projects on the same coast produces numbers a board can budget against. Priced from a book, the same study produces numbers a board gets surprised by. The arithmetic is fine either way. The inputs are not.

What a board should look for.

• Who performed the visual inspection, and are they licensed to evaluate what they looked at?
• Where do the cost figures come from: a national database, or local projects the firm can name?
• Does the study agree with your milestone inspection findings, or do the two reports describe different buildings?
• Will the preparer walk the board through the funding schedule and take questions, or just deliver the binder?
• If the study finds something that cannot wait, does the firm have engineers who can act on it?

A SIRS done well is the association's capital plan, priced honestly and updated on schedule. The binder is just where it lives.

Common questions.