Who cleans exterior windows in a condo?

In 718.113, the maintenance section of Florida's condominium statute, exterior windows appear in the hurricane protection subsection, and the clause that speaks to responsibility hands the answer straight back to the declaration.

Section 718.113(5)(a) deals with when a unit-owner vote on hurricane protection is needed. It says no vote is required if the installation, maintenance, repair and replacement of the hurricane protection, “or any exterior windows, doors, or other apertures protected by the hurricane protection, is the responsibility of the association pursuant to the declaration of condominium.”

Two things follow from that wording. The statute plainly contemplates a building where exterior windows behind hurricane protection are the association's to maintain. And it makes that depend on the declaration, not on the statute. Hurricane protection itself is defined in 718.103(19) to include hurricane shutters, “impact glass,” code-compliant windows or doors and other code-compliant products, so impact glass is itself hurricane protection under that definition. What the clause does not do is mention cleaning, or say who hires it.

Every pane on a condominium building falls on one side of a line the declaration draws. Chapter 718 supplies the categories and leaves the drawing to the document:

• The unit. Under 718.103(31), a unit is the part of the condominium property subject to exclusive ownership, “as specified in the declaration.”
• Common elements. Under 718.103(9), common elements are “the portions of the condominium property not included in the units.”
• Limited common elements. Under 718.103(22), these are common elements reserved for the use of a certain unit or units to the exclusion of all others, “as specified in the declaration.”

Then 718.113(1) assigns upkeep: “Maintenance of the common elements is the responsibility of the association, except for any maintenance responsibility for limited common elements assigned to the unit owner by the declaration.” So even glass that counts as a common element can land with an owner if it is a limited common element and the declaration says so. These three definitions name no building part, so no rule of thumb about windows holds across buildings.

One unit's balcony glass is a narrower version of this question, answered on whether windows can be cleaned on a condo balcony. The 718.113(1) sentence is also quoted in the homes and businesses section of the window cleaning page.

When the declaration leaves exterior glass with the association, the decisions move to the association's own structure. Chapter 718 defines both parts of it.

Under those definitions, building-wide exterior glass that the association is responsible for is the board's to administer. The paperwork side, including contracts for work and bids as association records, is covered for roofs on who is responsible for roof cleaning in a condo, and the same records rules are not repeated here.

Florida defines one kind of association manager by statute. Under 468.431(4), a community association manager is “a natural person who is licensed pursuant to this part to perform community association management services.”

Section 468.431(2) lists what those services are, when done for pay for associations above the unit count or annual budget the subsection sets, and the list includes “coordinating or performing maintenance for real or personal property and other related routine services involved in the operation of a community association.” Negotiating a contract's terms is on it only subject to the association's approval. Whether cleaning exterior glass counts as maintenance under a given declaration is a question for that declaration and the association.

People also use the looser phrase property manager for whoever runs a building day to day. None of the definitions in 468.431, 720.301 or 718.103 covers that phrase, so the title alone does not say whether a given manager holds the community association manager license.