What Is a Limited Common Element?
The phrase sits in section 718.103. This page reads that line, then the upkeep sentence beside it, for someone opening a declaration after the first closing.
What is a limited common element? It is a shared condo part the recorded declaration sets aside for one unit, or a few units, and withholds from the rest. On a Florida tower that line often points at the balcony. Use is not a separate deed. Bay Balcony washes that floor for downtown St. Petersburg owners and for Tampa owners. Assigning the share is not our job.
This is general information about how Florida condominium documents usually work, not legal advice. Your declaration governs, and a Florida community association attorney can read it with you.
What is a limited common element?
The line names a category, not a chair or a grill. Read it as a reservation: some shared parts are held back for particular units, and everyone else is kept off them. The paper that draws the line is the declaration, recorded when the condominium was created. The 2026 statute states the category in one sentence.
"Limited common elements" means those common elements which are reserved for the use of a certain unit or units to the exclusion of all other units, as specified in the declaration.
Source: Florida Senate, s. 718.103A board memo can echo the idea. It cannot create the category. If the recorded pages never reserve the balcony, the balcony is not in that category, whatever a manager writes in an email. Bring the recorded pages to the first annual meeting. A welcome booklet is a summary, and summaries drop the clause you need.
Look for a heading on reserved parts, then a table of balconies, storage lockers, and parking stalls tied to unit numbers. Your unit number should sit beside the balcony. If it does not, ask the manager for the recorded exhibit, not for a verbal yes.
Is a balcony a limited common element in Florida?
Often, on towers from Beach Drive to Channelside, the plot plan marks the slab that way. Sometimes the surveyor drew the unit line at the outer face of the rail, and the balcony sits inside the unit. Both show up in Pinellas and in Hillsborough. The statute does not choose for your building.
The Florida rules guide maps the wider set of balcony limits. The responsibility guide is where the bill lands once you know the label.
A glass rail on a post-2005 tower and a screened lanai on an older low-rise can share a label and look nothing alike. The label is about who may stand there, not about the metal or the mesh. Salt off the bay sits on either one.
Text a photo of the slab if you want the visit priced before you debate the chart.
Text a photoWhy does the label decide who pays?
Upkeep of shared parts starts with the association, and the recorded documents may hand a reserved part back to the unit. The label says the part is shared and reserved. The maintenance chart says who writes the check. Skip the chart and the argument is about the wrong sentence.
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.
Source: Florida Senate, s. 718.113Dirt on the tile is not a failed membrane. Bay Balcony comes for the dirt, at a flat $2 a square foot, without a hose, and we keep every drop on the slab. If the coating is cracking, we photograph it and leave the repair talk to you and the manager. The condo cleaning page is how a visit works inside a tower.
The label does not change the wash. It changes who you call when the concrete, not the grime, is the problem. A chart that names you for dirt can still name someone else for a cracked coating.
Frequently asked questions
Where do I read the reservation for my unit?
Start in the definitions, then the exhibit that lists reserved parts by unit number. Pinellas keeps the recorded declaration in the clerk official records. Hillsborough keeps its own. A portal copy helps only when it matches the recorded set.
Does the association take title to that balcony?
Chapter 718 does not hand the association a deed to the balcony you use. The reserved part stays inside the common elements, and the unit share of those travels with the deed. Some documents draw the balcony inside the unit boundary instead.
Can a cleaner decide who pays for the slab?
A wash does not settle the split. Bay Balcony prices the visit at two dollars per square foot and confirms the number before booking. Coatings, waterproofing, and structural concrete stay with whatever the declaration assigned.
Sources
- The Florida Senate. Section 718.103, Florida Statutes (2026). www.flsenate.gov
- The Florida Senate. Section 718.113, Florida Statutes (2026). www.flsenate.gov