Earlier this year, Puerto Rico closed a real gap in condo transactions. A new law now forces condominium associations to hand over their bylaws within five business days of a documented request. For a buyer touring a building on Ashford Avenue, that sounds like the kind of transparency mainland buyers have come to expect after Florida's post-Surfside reforms.
It isn't. The new law solves an access problem, not a solvency problem. It tells you what an association's rules say. It says nothing about whether the money exists to keep the building standing the way those rules assume it will.
What Law No. 13-2026 Actually Requires
Governor Jenniffer González signed House Bill 247 into law in January 2026, authored by Representative José J. Pérez. The measure, now Law No. 13-2026, amends Article 13 of Puerto Rico's Condominium Act (Law 129-2020) to fix a specific, documented problem: buyers historically received a building's bylaws late in the process, sometimes only after signing.
The fix is narrow and procedural. A condominium's administrator, or in the absence of one, the board president or secretary, must now deliver a copy of the bylaws and house rules to a licensed real estate broker with a sale mandate, or directly to a serious prospective buyer who asks for them. The clock is five business days from a properly documented request. Requesters have to identify themselves: brokers provide a license number and must be authorized under Law 10-1994, buyers provide photo identification and contact information. The association owes nothing to someone without a legitimate interest in an actual transaction.
That is the entire scope of the law. It is a rulebook-delivery mandate. Nothing in the text requires an association to disclose its reserve fund balance, its recent board minutes, or any pending special assessment.
What It Conspicuously Leaves Out
Compare that to what a buyer in a comparable Miami-area building would now expect. Since the Surfside collapse, Florida law has layered on milestone structural inspections tied to a building's age and coastline proximity, plus Structural Integrity Reserve Studies that force associations to project the real cost of replacing roofs, concrete, and waterproofing systems, then fund toward that number. In buildings of similar vintage to Condado's, per-unit special assessments tied to concrete restoration and roofing have run from the tens of thousands of dollars into six figures, and buyers there can request the engineering study before writing an offer.
Puerto Rico's Condominium Act does require a reserve fund. It has since 2020. But the mechanism is different in a way that matters:
The annual budget shall include a reserve fund item of not less than five percent (5%) of the operational budget of the condominium for that year. This fund shall be increased up to an amount equal to two percent (2%) of the value of reconstruction, at which time the Condominium Association shall decide whether it shall continue making deposits to same.
Read that again slowly. The 5% is calculated against the operating budget, the number that pays for landscaping, security, elevator maintenance contracts, and insurance. It is not calculated against what an engineer would say it actually costs to replace a fifty-year-old building's roof or restore its concrete facade.
The Wrong Denominator
This is the part worth sitting with if you're evaluating anything along Ashford Avenue built before the current boutique-tower wave. Much of Condado's residential stock dates to a construction boom running from the 1970s into the 1990s, largely pre-cast concrete, the same building era that has driven Florida's assessment wave. A small building with a modest annual operating budget can be fully compliant with Puerto Rico's 5% requirement while its reserve account holds a fraction of what a real concrete restoration project would cost. The law measures the wrong thing. It anchors savings to this year's utility and staffing costs, not to the physical age and condition of the building's major systems.
Florida's SIRS framework anchors reserve funding to an engineering-based projection of actual replacement costs. Puerto Rico's framework anchors it to a percentage of whatever the association happens to be spending this year on operations. Two buildings with identical concrete, identical age, and identical exposure to salt air can carry very different reserve balances, and both can be lawfully compliant.
| Puerto Rico | Florida (post-2022 reforms) | |
|---|---|---|
| Bylaws delivery to buyer | Required within 5 business days of request (Law 13-2026) | Governed by separate disclosure statutes |
| Reserve fund basis | 5% of annual operating budget, up to 2% of reconstruction value | Engineering-based Structural Integrity Reserve Study |
| Structural inspection tied to building age | Not required by statute | Milestone inspection required (25-30 years, by coastal proximity) |
| Who determines the number | The association's own board | A licensed engineer's projection |
What a Documented Request Should Actually Ask For
The new law gives you standing to request the bylaws quickly. Use that same window to ask for the documents the statute doesn't require the association to hand over automatically, because nothing stops you from asking, and a well-run building will usually have these on hand.
- The bylaws and house rules, requested formally, since the five-day clock only starts once the request is documented and the requester identified.
- The current reserve fund balance and how it compares to the annual operating budget, since that ratio is the only number the law actually mandates.
- The last two years of board meeting minutes, which is where discussions about concrete work, roof age, or elevator modernization surface long before an assessment is voted on.
- Written confirmation of any approved or pending special assessment, since neither law addresses this directly and silence from the association is not the same as a clean answer.
- The most recent independent reserve study, if one exists, since Puerto Rico law does not require it but a well-managed association may commission one anyway.
If the administrator or board can't produce items two through five within a reasonable window, that gap is the actual signal, not the five-day bylaws delivery you're statutorily entitled to.
What This Means for an Ashford Avenue Offer
None of this makes Condado's older buildings a bad bet. It means the diligence burden for a 1970s or 1980s tower along Ashford Avenue looks different than it would for the newer boutique developments built during the post-Act 22 wave, where reserve accounts are younger and closer to their first major capital cycle. The Condado Vanderbilt Hotel, built in 1919, and La Concha Resort, from 1958, are reminders that this corridor has been rebuilding and restoring concrete for a long time. The residential towers around them are next in that cycle, one building at a time.
A buyer who treats the five-day bylaws rule as proof the transaction is transparent is stopping one step too early. The law hands you the rulebook. The reserve account, the board minutes, and the assessment history are still yours to request, and in Puerto Rico, unlike Florida, no statute obligates the association to volunteer them.
Does the disclosure law cover reserve fund statements or pending assessments?
No. Law 13-2026 amends only the bylaws and house rules delivery requirement under Article 13 of the Condominium Act. Reserve fund balances, board minutes, and special assessment status fall outside its scope.
Who is legally responsible for handing over the bylaws?
The condominium's administrator. If there is no administrator, the responsibility falls to the president or, failing that, the secretary of the board of directors.
Do I need a broker to request these documents?
No. A serious prospective buyer can request the bylaws directly by providing photo identification and contact information. Brokers requesting on a buyer's behalf must additionally provide a license number and be authorized under Law 10-1994.
If you're evaluating a specific building along Ashford Avenue or elsewhere in Condado and want a second set of eyes on what the association's documents actually show, Nest-Lux can walk through the reserve fund math and board history with you before you write an offer, not after.
