Your SIRS Named the Money. Your Milestone Report Named the Damage.

Most associations now hold two documents that nobody enjoys reading. A milestone inspection report says what is wrong with the building. A Structural Integrity Reserve Study says what the building will cost over time.

Boards tend to file them separately, because they arrive separately and satisfy separate requirements. Read together, they are the most honest financial picture an association will ever get — and they answer the question that actually decides whether repairs happen on time: can we pay for this?

Here is what a SIRS obliges you to do, what it does not, and how it connects to the repair work a milestone report triggers.

What a SIRS is

A Structural Integrity Reserve Study applies to residential condominium and cooperative buildings of three or more habitable stories — the same threshold as the milestone inspection.

It has to be performed or verified by a Florida-licensed professional engineer or architect, or by someone holding a recognised reserve-study credential. It is not something a board or a management company can produce in-house.

The initial deadline was 31 December 2025. Associations whose milestone inspection falls due by 31 December 2026 may align their SIRS with that later date.

The eight components you cannot vote away

This is the part boards most often misunderstand.

A SIRS must study eight specific components, and reserves for those eight cannot be waived by a vote of unit owners. Whatever the membership wants, the funding obligation for these is not discretionary.

Look at the sixth row. Waterproofing and exterior painting is a non-waivable reserve component in its own right. Florida law now obliges your association to set money aside for exactly the work that keeps water out of the structure — the work boards have historically deferred first when budgets tightened. That is not our argument; it is the statute's.

The two-year pause, and what it is for

HB 913 added a mechanism that matters enormously to any board holding a Phase 2 repair scope.

An association that has completed a milestone inspection may, with membership approval, pause reserve contributions for up to two budget years in order to prioritise the milestone repairs themselves. There is a condition on the way back: a new SIRS must be conducted before normal contributions resume.

Read plainly, the legislature has said that fixing the building now takes precedence over saving for fixing it later. For a board staring at a repair scope it cannot fund from reserves, that is the difference between starting on time and starting late.

It is also a decision with consequences, and it is one for your association's counsel and accountant — not your contractor. What we can tell you is that the boards who use it well are the ones who knew their repair number before the vote, not after.

Reading the two documents together

The useful move is to lay the milestone deficiencies against the SIRS component list and see where they land. Spalled balconies are the structure line. Failed sealant joints and deck membranes are the waterproofing line. If your SIRS shows those components with little remaining life and thin funding, the milestone report is not a surprise — it is the reserve study arriving early.

A note on who prepares what

HB 913 also tightened conflict-of-interest disclosure, and it applies to reserve study preparers as much as to inspectors and contractors. A professional who prepares your SIRS and then bids on the repair work it identifies has to disclose that relationship.

We think boards should treat this as a screening question rather than a compliance box. Ask the question of everyone at the table, ourselves included.

To be clear about our own position: Basile Contractors does not prepare reserve studies and does not perform milestone inspections. We are a building restoration contractor. We do the structural, facade and waterproofing repairs those documents call for, and we coordinate with your engineer of record through sign-off.

Where boards get this wrong

Treating the SIRS as a filing requirement. A study that goes into a drawer still leaves the components underfunded. The number in it is a forecast of assessments, not paperwork.

Funding the eight components evenly. Remaining life is not uniform. A roof with four years left and a waterproofing system with one are not the same problem, and a flat contribution treats them as if they were.

Deferring the waterproofing line. It is the easiest line to cut and the most expensive to have cut. Concrete repaired and left unprotected in salt air begins corroding again, and the association pays for the same repair twice inside a decade.

Bidding repairs before the scope exists. A reserve study is not a scope of work. Neither, on its own, is a milestone report. Both describe conditions; somebody still has to define sequence, access, phasing and unit pricing before bids can be compared honestly.

Turning two documents into one plan

If your board is trying to turn a reserve study and a repair scope into one plan it can actually fund, we will walk the building at no cost and give you a written, line-item scope for the structural, facade and waterproofing work. No obligation, and no number over the phone; what the repair costs depends on what is on the wall.

Tell us about your building. We'll come look at it, and tell you honestly what it needs.