At 1:22 AM on June 24, 2021, the central and eastern sections of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside, Florida partially collapsed. The collapse took less than twelve seconds. Ninety-eight people lost their lives. Many of them were asleep in their homes when the building came down.

Five years later, the National Institute of Standards and Technology released its technical findings on what caused the collapse. The report, issued on June 22, 2026, two days before the fifth anniversary, concluded that the disaster did not begin with the catastrophic moment captured on surveillance video. It began three weeks earlier, in early June 2021, when two structural connections between garage columns and the pool deck failed. Cracks spread. Loads redistributed. The building stood for three more weeks while the failure progressed silently below. Then, in less than twelve seconds, it was gone.

This post is not a forensic analysis. NIST has produced that work, and others more qualified than us have walked through the engineering. This post is a reflection. Five years on, what does the community association industry owe the ninety-eight? What does every condominium board across this country owe them?

We believe the answer is the work that protects everyone else.

What NIST Found

The federal investigation concluded that Champlain Towers South had inadequate margins against failure from the day it was completed. Design deficiencies, construction deviations from the design drawings, added loads accumulated over four decades, and long-term degradation from water penetration and corrosion of reinforcing steel combined to weaken the structure to the point that two connections beneath the pool deck could no longer carry their loads.

Several things the investigation specifically ruled out as causes are worth noting. The collapse was not caused by vibrations from nearby construction. It was not caused by foundation failure, sinkholes, or settling. It was not caused by hurricane forces or storm surge. It was not caused by an accidental overload from the rooftop work underway at the time. The cause was the building itself, and what had happened to it, and what had not been done about it.

The board of Champlain Towers South had been aware of significant structural concerns. A 2018 engineering report identified “major structural damage” requiring substantial repairs. By April 2021, those problems were described as “much worse.” A $15 million remediation program had been approved before the collapse. The structural work had not started.

The reasons it had not started involved a familiar pattern. Reserve funding was insufficient to cover the work. Decisions about how to fund it required difficult conversations among owners. Time passed. The work waited. Then time ran out.

What This Means for Every Condominium Board

The lessons of Champlain Towers South are not unique to Surfside, to South Florida, or to 1980s reinforced concrete construction. They reach every condominium board in this country, including the boards Eclipse serves across Ohio and Northern Kentucky. There are three lessons in particular that no board should pass on:

1. The Reserve Study Is a Safety Document

Most board members think of the reserve study as a financial document. It is. But it is also a safety document. The reserve study is where the association’s physical responsibilities meet its financial capacity, and the gap between those two things is where catastrophic failures begin.

A reserve study that underestimates remaining useful life, that overlooks components the association is actually responsible for, that assumes inflation rates that bear no relation to current construction costs, or that recommends a funding level the board chooses not to follow, is not just a flawed financial planning document. It is a structural problem waiting for time to find it.

Every board should pull its current reserve study and understand the following:

• When it was last done, and whether it included an engineering site inspection
• Whether the component list reflects what the association actually owns and is responsible for
• Whether the recommended contribution is what the budget actually includes
• Whether there are any components flagged for replacement in the next five years that the board has not yet planned to fund

2. Deferred Maintenance Compounds in Ways That Are Invisible Until They Aren’t

The structural failure at Champlain Towers South began three weeks before the building collapsed. It began as a slow loss of margin against failure that had been accumulating for forty years. Nothing about the morning of June 24, 2021 looked different from any other morning in the building’s history. The failure had been silently underway.

Deferred maintenance is the same pattern. A roof that needs replacement gets patched. A parking lot that needs repaving gets sealcoated. Each individual deferral seems reasonable. Each individual deferral usually is reasonable. The problem is that the deferrals compound.

A board that defers maintenance year over year is making a bet that the components in question will not fail on their watch. Sometimes the bet pays off. Sometimes it does not. The boards at Champlain Towers South were not negligent in this sense. They were people doing their best with the information they had, the funds they could access, and the difficult conversations they were trying to have with their neighbors about money.

The lesson is not that boards should second-guess every decision. The lesson is that capital reserve funding and timely repair are not optional. They are the fiduciary core of what a condominium board does.

3. Funding Hard Decisions Is the Job

The most difficult work a condominium board does is the work of telling owners that costs have gone up, that an assessment increase is needed, that a special assessment may be coming, that the deferred work cannot be deferred any longer. These conversations are hard. They are unpopular. They sometimes lose board members their seats at the next election.

They are also non-negotiable. A board that cannot have these conversations will, eventually, end up with a community that has not been able to fund the work the building requires. The work does not go away. It only gets more expensive, and the consequences of not doing it get more severe.

Eclipse is in the business of supporting boards through exactly these conversations. We provide the financial data, the reserve study analysis, the communications support, and the framework that makes hard decisions easier to land with owners. That support exists because every board that has ever served in a community association knows how hard it is to walk into a meeting and ask owners to pay more.

The boards at Champlain Towers South were trying. The $15 million remediation program had been approved. The work was not yet underway when the building came down.

The Reform Landscape

The Champlain Towers South collapse triggered the most significant reform of condominium regulation in a generation.

Florida’s response was the most extensive. The state passed legislation requiring Structural Integrity Reserve Studies for condominium buildings of three or more stories, mandatory milestone inspections for older buildings, and prohibitions against waiving or underfunding reserves for the structural components the studies identify. The law explicitly addressed the funding gap that contributed to Champlain Towers South by requiring boards to actually maintain reserves for structural components rather than allow owners to vote to waive funding.

At the federal level, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac tightened their condominium lending guidelines significantly. The current standards effective March 2026 include minimum reserve contribution requirements and disqualify projects with significant deferred maintenance from lending eligibility. Communities with weak reserves now face direct consequences for unit financing — meaning the resale value of every unit in the project is affected.

Other states have followed Florida’s lead in varying degrees. Ohio has not enacted Surfside-specific legislation, but the existing requirements of the Ohio Condominium Act, combined with the Fannie/Freddie underwriting standards, have raised the practical floor for what condominium boards in Ohio must do. Kentucky’s framework remains layered, but the lender pressure applies equally.

The regulatory direction is clear. Reserve studies will be required, reserve funding will be scrutinized, and deferred maintenance will increasingly be visible to buyers, lenders, and insurance carriers. The boards that act now, voluntarily, get ahead of pressures that will only intensify.

What Boards Should Do This Month

In recognition of the fifth anniversary, and in remembrance of the ninety-eight who lost their lives, every board Eclipse serves should consider the following:

• Locate your current reserve study. Confirm when it was last done, what level of study it was, and what its funding recommendation said. If the study is more than five years old or has not included a site visit in five or more years, plan for an updated study now.
• Confirm your reserve contribution. Compare what the study recommended against what the budget actually includes. Document the variance, if any, in board minutes.
• Inventory deferred maintenance. List every component the board knows needs work but has not yet funded. Include the engineer’s recommendations, the cost estimate, the proposed timing, and the funding source. Bring it to the next board meeting for discussion.
• Schedule a structural review of your building’s most critical components. For Ohio and Kentucky condominiums in particular, this means roof systems, balconies and decks, parking structures, exterior wall systems, and any below-grade waterproofing. If your community has not had a qualified engineer look at these components in the last five years, schedule the inspection now.
• Have the hard conversation with owners. If reserves are inadequate, if deferred maintenance is accumulating, if assessment increases are needed, the boards that handle these conversations earliest and most transparently have the best outcomes. The boards that wait usually wish they had not.

This is not work that should be perceived as alarmist. It is work that should be perceived as honoring the memory of the people who died at Champlain Towers South by ensuring that what happened to them cannot happen anywhere else.

In Memory

Eclipse Community Management exists because community associations matter. They are how millions of Americans live, raise their families, and connect with their neighbors. They are also, when run well, one of the most reliable forms of shared stewardship of physical infrastructure that we have. When run poorly, the consequences can be small, frustrating, expensive, or, in the worst cases, fatal.

Ninety-eight people died at Champlain Towers South. Some of them were friends. Some of them were partners. Some of them were children who never had the chance to grow up. The work the rest of us do, in the communities we serve, is for them.

If you would like Eclipse to walk through your community’s reserve study, identify gaps, or talk through any of the structural or capital planning topics in this post, reach out to us here. It is the kind of conversation worth having, and one we are always glad to start.

This article is informational and is not legal, financial, or engineering advice. Boards facing specific questions about reserve studies, deferred maintenance, or structural concerns should consult with their association attorney, a qualified reserve specialist, and a licensed structural engineer.

Eclipse Community Management remembers the 98 lives lost at Champlain Towers South on June 24, 2021. May their memory continue to make every community safer.