Mold in a condo, apartment, or rental in Miami-Dade

Most mold calls in Miami-Dade come from a unit, not a house: a condo on the Beach with a wet wall from the unit above, an apartment in Hialeah with black spots behind the air handler, a rental in Kendall where the landlord says it is just mildew. The mold is the same; the difference is that fixing it depends on people who are not you, and the delay while everyone argues about responsibility is what turns a small patch into a remediation.

This page is about getting the facts established fast. Call or send the form; a Florida-licensed mold assessor who works your area calls you back, and their written report is the document that makes the landlord, the association, or the neighbor act. We are not lawyers and this is not legal advice; it is the order of operations that works.

Who is responsible, in general terms

• Renters: Florida Statute 83.51 requires a landlord to keep the premises habitable, and the courts have treated a mold problem from a leak the landlord did not fix as a habitability issue. The tenant’s duty is to report it in writing and not to cause it (running the AC, reporting leaks). Florida has no mold-specific tenant law; the general habitability rule is what applies.
• Condo owners: under Chapter 718 the association maintains the common elements (the roof, the exterior walls, the plumbing risers, sometimes the windows) and the owner maintains the unit’s interior (drywall, cabinets, the air handler). Mold from a roof leak is usually the association’s water and your drywall, and the declaration of condominium says where the line is for your building. Read it before the meeting.
• The unit above: if their water heater, washer hose, or shower pan flooded your ceiling, that is a claim between owners and their insurers, and the association is the referee. Your own HO-6 policy has a mold sublimit; find out what it is.
• Everyone: Florida’s 10 square foot rule still applies. Over that, assessment and remediation are licensed trades, the assessor and the remediator must be different companies, and a landlord who sends a handyman with bleach is not meeting it.

What to do this week

• Report it in writing, with photos and the date, to the landlord or the association: email, and a letter if the lease or the declaration requires it. Verbal reports do not exist later.
• Keep the AC running and the humidity under 60 percent. Do not run a dehumidifier in a sealed room with the AC off; do not bleach it; do not open the wall.
• Get a licensed assessor’s report. It documents the source, the extent, and the protocol for fixing it, in a form a landlord, an association, an adjuster, and if it comes to it a court all recognize. Its cost is small next to the argument it ends. If the landlord or association will not order one, order it yourself; the report is yours.
• If anyone in the unit has asthma or is immunocompromised, say so in the written report and to the assessor. It changes the urgency and it belongs in the record.
• Do not withhold rent without legal advice. Florida allows rent withholding for habitability only under a specific procedure in Statute 83.60, with written notice and a waiting period, and getting it wrong is grounds for eviction.

What the assessor’s visit looks like in a unit

The assessor finds the moisture source, which in a building is usually not inside the unit: a riser in the wall, the slab above, a window that leaks in wind-driven rain, the AC closet’s condensate line shared with the stack. They measure the growth, read moisture in the walls and ceiling, take air and surface samples where the protocol calls for them, and write the report: source, affected materials, square footage, and the remediation protocol. They will also tell you whether the neighboring units or the corridor need looking at, which is the association’s question to answer.

The remediation, when it happens, needs building access, a notice to neighbors, containment in a small space, and negative air that vents somewhere the association agrees to. A remediator who works condos knows the drill; one who does not will spend the first day in the management office.

What drives the cost

We do not set or quote prices. The assessor’s fee depends on the unit size and the sampling the protocol requires; the remediation depends on the square footage, the containment, and how much of the wall comes out. Who pays is the question this page exists for, and the report is how it gets answered. Price, timing, and warranty are between you and the licensed professional.