Author: Dr. Leslie Snead
The questions I hear at condo-board bid tables repeat, and underneath each one is a different question. Before you reach that room, being findable to Miami boards before the bid list is drawn matters; once you are there, visibility has done its job. The board is no longer testing whether you can describe concrete restoration. It is testing what happens to its number, its residents and its building after the members vote for you in public.
That is why a polished presentation can still lose to a contractor who gives the committee a clearer mechanism for uncertainty. In South Florida, where milestone inspections, Phase 2 reports and 40-year recertification work put complicated scopes before boards in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach, five questions come up again and again. I will give you the answer beneath each question, then one board story that explains why the longest answer—the one about scope growth—carries more weight than the rest.
“Have you done this exact work on a building like ours?”
Underneath: will our building be your experiment? Answer with one comparable association, the work performed there, and a board contact willing to take a call.
“What happens if you open it up and it is worse than you thought?”
Underneath: will the number move after we have committed to it politically? This is the longest answer and the one that decides the vote.
“When can you start, and will you finish before season?”
Underneath: how long will residents live inside a construction site? A start window is only half the answer; the phasing plan is the other half.
“Who is actually going to be on our property?”
Underneath: who walks past our doors? Name the subcontractors and hand over their coverage documents before anybody asks.
“Did you have anything to do with the report?”
Underneath: did someone who profits from the scope help define its size? Answer cleanly, disclose any relationship, and do not bury it inside a longer presentation.
“Have you done this exact work on a building like ours?”
The board is asking whether its building will be your experiment. Answer with one comparable association, the work you performed there and a board contact willing to take a call. Contractors often stop after showing project photographs or listing years in business. Neither gives the committee a person who can describe how your crew behaved after mobilization, when residents complained, or when the scope changed. A comparable-association contact closes that gap. The comparison also needs to be real: occupied coastal concrete restoration is not interchangeable with a private-house repair or an empty commercial site.
Name the relevant scope and the conditions around it, then let the prior board speak for itself. You are not trying to prove that you have completed a large volume of construction. You are proving that another association trusted you with the same kind of disruption and will still answer the phone.
“What happens if you open it up and it is worse than you thought?”
The board is asking whether the number will move after the members have committed to it politically. On concrete restoration, the honest answer is that nobody knows the full quantity until demolition begins. Visible spalling is the part you can see. Delamination can extend beyond that edge, and hammer sounding can identify hollow zones that push the demolition boundary farther. If your bid treats the visible area as the final quantity, you have priced certainty that the building has not given you.
Visible spalling
The part anyone can see and photograph at bid time. The only quantity a thin bid prices.
Delamination past the edge
Sound concrete at the surface can be hollow behind it. The damage does not stop where the photograph does.
Hammer sounding
Identifies hollow zones and moves the demolition boundary outward — often well past the marked area.
Demolition reveals the real quantity
Only now does anyone know the true square footage of removal and linear footage of rebar work.
Negotiation — or the agreed rate
Whichever one your proposal set up in advance. There is no third option once residents are living beside scaffolding.
Do not answer that uncertainty with a vague allowance. Show the mechanism. State a unit rate for additional concrete removal by square foot and for rebar work by linear foot, without turning the presentation into a speculative total. Explain who documents the added area, who reviews it, who has authority to approve the expansion and what the board will receive before it is billed. Photographs, marked locations and measured quantities make a change order understandable. The approval path keeps field discovery from becoming an argument between a superintendent, a community association manager and a board that thought the original number was fixed.
- Unit rate for additional concrete removal, by square foot
- Unit rate for rebar work, by linear foot
- Named person who documents the added area
- Named reviewer, and who holds authority to approve the expansion
- Photographs, marked locations and measured quantities delivered before billing
- A lump-sum allowance with no rate behind it
- “We will work it out on site”
- A total that prices only the visible spalling
- A promise that the number cannot move
- Change orders that first appear on an invoice
“When can you start, and will you finish before season?”
The board asks for dates, but it is really asking how long residents will live inside a construction site. “Before season” is the deadline in the room, especially in occupied South Florida buildings where more owners return during the fall and winter. A start window is only the first half of the answer. The second is a phasing plan that makes disruption scheduled and visible: which elevation or stack comes first, how access changes, when noisy work can occur, and how much advance notice residents receive before a disruptive phase.
“Who is actually going to be on our property?”
Name the subcontractors and hand over their coverage documents before anybody asks. That unprompted step is the answer. The board is not looking for a speech about how carefully you select crews; it wants to know who will walk past residents’ doors, enter controlled areas and work on occupied property. If a trade is not selected yet, say how and when the name will be supplied instead of implying that every crew member is already known.
The documents themselves are expected. Volunteering them is what changes the conversation, because it answers a concern the board may not know how to raise without sounding suspicious of everyone in the room. You are showing that responsibility does not stop with the company named on the proposal.
“Did you have anything to do with the report?”
Boards ask this directly now. If you had no involvement in the milestone inspection or Phase 2 report, say so plainly. The committee is already wondering whether someone who could profit from the repair scope helped define its size. Treat it as a room question: answer it cleanly, disclose the relationship that exists, and do not bury the response inside a longer presentation. Name the conflict of interest directly when one exists.
The board that took the lower bid
Two bids with a meaningful gap
The lower bid came from a contractor one board member had used at his own house and liked. The higher bid carried unit rates for additional work, a phasing plan, and references from two other associations. The scopes filling those agendas are explained in why these repair scopes are landing on so many boards’ tables at once.
The board took the lower bid — defensibly
A member vouched for the contractor and the number was smaller. The higher proposal asked the members to value mechanisms they had not yet needed.
The scope grew past the visible damage
No unit rates had been agreed for the additional work. Every expansion became a negotiation — and every negotiation happened after residents were already living beside scaffolding.
Finished late, and above the higher bid
The board member who had vouched for the contractor did not stand for the board again.
What the board had not registered was that the lower bid priced the visible spalling. Once demolition started, the scope grew beyond the damage visible at bid time. No unit rates had been agreed for that additional work. Every expansion therefore became a negotiation, and every negotiation happened after residents were already living beside scaffolding. The board was no longer comparing two clean proposals on equal footing. It was deciding discovered work inside an active project, with disruption underway and less practical room to change contractors.
The job finished late and above the higher bid. The board member who had vouched for the contractor did not stand for the board again. That ending is not proof that personal recommendations are worthless or that the smaller proposal is always wrong. The choice made sense with the information the board had emphasized. The failure was that the proposal offered no agreed way to price, show and approve the uncertainty everyone would discover only after opening the concrete.
The lesson is not that cheap contractors are bad. On concrete work, the bid is a forecast, and the contractor who tells the board how that forecast will change is more honest than the contractor whose number looks final. The higher bidder had not predicted the exact quantity of hidden damage. He had explained how additional work would be measured, priced and fitted into an occupied-building plan. That was the real difference between the proposals.
Condo board bid questions: quick answers
[wps_faq style=”classic” question=”What references do condo boards actually want from a contractor?”]One comparable association, the work you performed there, and a board contact authorised to take the call. Photographs and years in business do not give the committee a person who can describe how your crew behaved after mobilisation, when residents complained, or when the scope changed. The comparison must also be real — occupied coastal concrete restoration is not interchangeable with a private-house repair or an empty commercial site.[/wps_faq]
[wps_faq style=”classic” question=”How should a bid handle concrete scope that grows after demolition?”]With a mechanism, not an allowance. State a unit rate for additional concrete removal by square foot and for rebar work by linear foot. Name who documents the added area, who reviews it, who has authority to approve the expansion, and what the board receives before it is billed. Photographs, marked locations and measured quantities make a change order understandable instead of adversarial.[/wps_faq]
[wps_faq style=”classic” question=”Why do boards distrust the lowest bid on restoration work?”]Because they are coached to ask what it left out. On concrete work, an unusually low number often means the visible spalling was priced as if it were the final quantity. Delamination extends past the visible edge and hammer sounding pushes the demolition boundary farther, so the missing work reappears as negotiation once residents are already living beside scaffolding.[/wps_faq]
[wps_faq style=”classic” question=”Should a contractor disclose a relationship with the inspecting engineer?”]Yes, plainly and in the bid package. Boards now ask directly whether the bidder had any involvement in the milestone inspection or Phase 2 report, because they are weighing whether someone who profits from the repair scope helped define its size. If you had no role, say so cleanly. If a relationship exists — including through an owner, officer, relative or affiliated firm — disclose it rather than burying the answer inside a longer presentation.[/wps_faq]
Stop presenting a number you cannot defend the movement of
The strongest bid tells the board what is known, what can only be learned after demolition and what happens when those two quantities differ. Give the committee unit rates for additional work, a visible approval path and evidence before billing. Then the conversation is about managing discovery, not explaining a surprise.
South Florida boards are seeing more repair scopes tied to milestone inspections, Phase 2 findings and long-standing 40-year recertification work, but this article is not the statutory explanation for that pipeline. The practical point from my side of the table is narrower: increased board activity does not make a vague forecast safer. It raises the value of a contractor who can explain how the estimate behaves once the surface comes off. If your next condo proposal gives a committee that mechanism before the vote, you have answered the question beneath all five questions: what happens to our number and our building after we choose you?
