Multifamily HandiCap Accessibility Compliance

[Jim Hiler]

Dear BP - While discussing my goals to acquire small to midsize multifamily properties in South Florida with someone I was warned of handicapped compliance issues. The specific example given was that the sale of a Multifamily building might trigger the state or county to require you to bring the building up to the current handicap accessibility codes...which to me sounds like it could be a major hurdle depending on when the building was built etc.

I'm a GC that specializes in high end residential so I haven't dealt much with handicap accessibility in public spaces. However I do know that in residential if you are doing a major renovation which is equal to 50% of the value of the building you are required to bring the entire structure up to code. This may be the scenario in the example that was given to me but that wasn't made clear.

In any case I'm curious to see what others  experience has been when purchasing Multifamily (5 units or more) in South Florida.

P.S. This has triggered me to brush up on my review of the code books!