Leasing a Miami condo

You negotiate with the owner. Then a second party you have never met decides whether you move in, how long you may stay, and how much of your money it holds while you are there. Nobody explains this before it costs you a lease, so here it is — with the statute, and with what the rules actually are in six Edgewater towers a few hundred metres apart.

Published 23 August 2026

Where the association’s power actually comes from

Not from the statute. This is the part almost everyone gets backwards.

Florida law gives a condominium association no inherent right to approve or reject a tenant. Chapter 718 assumes the right may exist and then regulates it. Section 718.112(2)(k) begins:

“An association may not charge a fee in connection with the sale, mortgage, lease, sublease, or other transfer of a unit unless the association is required to approve such transfer and a fee for such approval is provided for in the declaration, articles, or bylaws.”

So the second landlord’s authority is only as wide as a recorded document that most tenants — and a surprising number of owners — have never opened. If the declaration does not authorise rejection, the board has no business rejecting.

And where the right does exist, it is a restraint on the transfer of real property, which means it must be reasonable. An arbitrary denial is not obviously enforceable. That is the doctrine that limits the second landlord, and it is worth knowing you have it.

The fee rules, and the two that are routinely broken

The screening fee is capped per applicant. Not per application. A married couple with two dependent children is one applicant, because the statute treats spouses and dependent children living as one family as a single applicant. The published figure has been $150 per applicant; the Department of Business and Professional Regulation reviews it periodically, so confirm the current number rather than accepting whatever appears on the application form.

On renewal with the same tenant, no fee is permitted at all. Associations charge one routinely. If you are renewing in the same unit with the same association, that line on your invoice is worth questioning.

The association may hold its own security deposit, capped at one month’s rent. From the same section:

“if the authority to do so appears in the declaration, articles, or bylaws, an association may require that a prospective lessee place a security deposit, in an amount not to exceed the equivalent of 1 month’s rent, into an escrow account maintained by the association.”

This is the single most under-explained cost in Miami leasing. You can face two deposits — one to the owner under your lease, and a second to the association, held in escrow. On a $6,000 unit that is $12,000 of your capital held by two different parties under two different sets of rules. Budget for it before you sign, because discovering it three days before move-in is a genuinely bad week.

The clause that surprises owners: you lose your own amenities

Section 718.106 is blunt, and it is a statutory rule rather than a building policy:

“When a unit is leased, a tenant shall have all use rights in the association property and those common elements otherwise readily available for use generally by unit owners and the unit owner shall not have such rights except as a guest, unless such rights are waived in writing by the tenant.”

Read that again if you own. Let your unit and the pool, the gym and the spa become the tenant’s — and you are a guest in your own building. Associations may also adopt rules prohibiting dual usage outright.

For a tenant this is good news and worth knowing: the amenity access is yours by statute, not by the owner’s grace.

Tenants are bound directly, and can be fined directly

Section 718.303(1) binds “each unit owner, tenant and other invitee” to the declaration and the bylaws. Section 718.303(3) allows fines that “may not exceed $100 per violation, or $1,000 in the aggregate,” and they may be levied per day for a continuing violation.

You are not merely the owner’s guest. You are a party to the building’s rules, and you can be penalised under them.

Six Edgewater towers, and how little they agree

This is the part that decides whether a building works for you, and it cannot be inferred from the listing. These towers are walking distance from one another.

A tenant who needs a three-month stay has four options on that list and two that are impossible. An owner buying for letting income who assumes “30 days, like the building next door” and lands in Bay House has bought a one-year-minimum asset. The gap between twelve leases a year and one is the difference between two entirely different investments.

What the process actually looks like

1. Read the declaration. Approval required? Minimum term? Leases per year? Waiting period after the owner’s purchase?
2. Agree terms with the owner — and make the lease conditional on association approval. Without that condition you can be bound to a lease the building will not let you perform.
3. Apply to the association. Application, fee per applicant, sometimes an interview.
4. Screening. Build in real time here; it is rarely as quick as anyone promises.
5. Approval, then move-in logistics — elevator reservation, certificate of insurance from the movers, and a move-in window that is often narrower than people expect.

Your protections in Miami-Dade

The county’s Tenant’s Bill of Rights adds real obligations on landlords, including 60 days’ notice before a rent increase above 5%, 60 days’ notice to end a month-to-month tenancy, and notice within 14 days if the landlord receives a government or association notice about building safety.

It also restricts screening: a landlord may not inquire about or require disclosure of eviction history until the prospective tenant has been determined qualified. Whether that restriction reaches an association acting as approver is not settled in anything I could find, so treat it as a question for a lawyer rather than a certainty.

What the market is doing

As of the May 2026 MIAMI REALTORS rental report, the Miami-Dade condo and townhouse median rent was $2,100, with asking rents around $2,660 and up about 1.5% year over year — against roughly 0.2% nationally. Stabilised occupancy was 95.4%.

The tiers have separated: Class A+ and A asking rents rose about 0.4% year on year while Class C fell about 1.0%. The same report puts the median condo’s monthly ownership cost at $3,084 against that $2,100 median rent, which is a gap of roughly $984 a month — the arithmetic behind a lot of decisions to lease rather than buy right now.

Where I fit

I have leased units in Gran Paraiso and Elysee Miami repeatedly, representing tenants. That is a narrow claim and I will keep it narrow: two Edgewater towers, the tenant’s side, more than once.

What it means in practice is that I have been through those associations’ processes rather than read about them — the application, the timing, the documents they actually want, and the difference between what the rule says and how it is administered. That knowledge does not generalise to every building in Miami, and I will tell you when you are outside it.

Work out what a unit really costs to hold → · Rental yield, if you are the owner → · Louer et déclarer vos revenus locatifs →