On Sunset Islands 3 and 4, any contract signed for a home today involves a $2,412,398 infrastructure bill. It goes back to a 2012 owner vote in favor of an assessment district, and the city records we reviewed do not show that collection has started. The overhead electric, telephone and cable lines on the two islands came down in September 2025. Under Florida law, the City of Miami Beach can start collecting the special assessment that pays for that work only after the City Commission formally accepts the project as complete. The City Manager's October 29, 2025 memo put it this way: "Funding allocated pursuant to this assessment has been fully expended and the collection of the assessment fees is now required to meet the associated debt service obligations."
The timing matters more than the amount. The standard Florida residential contract decides who pays a public assessment based on where the improvement stood on the contract's Effective Date. The poles came down in September 2025, which moved every later Sunset Islands 3 & 4 contract into a different section of that language.
Thirteen years from vote to bill
The district was set up slowly, so the bill can reach owners who bought long after the vote.
- 2012. According to the City Manager's December 17, 2025 memo, 81% of Sunset Islands 3 & 4 homeowners voted to fund undergrounding through a special assessment district. The city only creates these districts when at least 60% of affected owners approve, a policy that a 2018 Commission memorandum traces to Resolutions 2002-24761 and 2012-27842.
- September 10, 2014. The Commission hired Ric-Man International, Inc. for right-of-way improvements on Sunset Islands 3 & 4, including conduits for the future undergrounding.
- October 14, 2015. Resolution No. 2015-29180 created the Sunset Islands 3 & 4 Utility Improvement District under Chapter 170 of the Florida Statutes, for a ten-year term, at an estimated cost of $2,412,398.
- September 2025. FPL, AT&T and Breezeline, which now services the former ABB lines, finished undergrounding and relocating their lines. The poles were removed.
- October 29 and December 17, 2025. City Manager memos asked the Commission to accept the project as complete under section 170.09. The item was on the December 17, 2025 Commission agenda as consent item C7 B.
The work has already been paid for. The 2025 memo says the city funded it with a bank loan and that "No general fund revenues or reserves were used for this project." An earlier city budget document describes a different arrangement. In that version, $1.5 million was advanced from the General Fund under Resolution No. 2016-29273, and the city planned to take out a bank loan after completion to repay itself. In both accounts, the $2,412,398 total includes the utilities' binding estimates, the city contractor's conduit work, project management, financing costs and the city's administrative fees, and assessment receipts pay off the loan. According to the same budget document, billing starts once the Commission adopts a resolution accepting the improvements as complete.
What the contract says about a finished project with no lien yet
The current Florida Realtors/Florida Bar residential contracts, both the standard form and the AS IS form, deal with this in Paragraph 9(f):
At Closing, Seller shall pay: (i) the full amount of liens imposed by a public body ... that are certified, confirmed and ratified before Closing; and (ii) the amount of the public body's most recent estimate or assessment for an improvement which is substantially complete as of Effective Date, but that has not resulted in a lien being imposed on the Property before Closing. Buyer shall pay all other assessments.
For Sunset Islands 3 & 4, that clause sorts contracts into three groups.
- Effective Date before September 2025. The improvement was not yet substantially complete and no lien had been certified. That puts the assessment under "all other assessments," the phrase that assigns it to the buyer.
- Effective Date after September 2025, with no lien imposed by closing. The work was done and the poles were gone. Clause (ii) assigns the city's "most recent estimate or assessment" to the seller.
- Lien certified, confirmed and ratified before closing. Clause (i) assigns the full amount to the seller.
The default language does not settle everything. The next lines of 9(f) cover assessments that can be paid in installments. Under option (a), the seller pays installments due before closing, the buyer pays installments due after, and installments prepaid or due in the year of closing are prorated. Under option (b), the seller pays in full any assessment the public body allows to be prepaid, and option (a) applies to anything that cannot be prepaid. The form says: "IF NEITHER BOX IS CHECKED, THEN OPTION (a) SHALL BE DEEMED SELECTED."
If the city collects this assessment in installments, the checkbox matters more than the clause above it. With option (a) in effect, installments due after closing belong to the buyer, even though the project was finished well before the contract was signed.
The same paragraph also states what it does not cover. It excludes Community Development District liens under Chapter 190 and special district assessments under Chapter 189, which are prorated under a separate standard. The Sunset Islands district was created under Chapter 170 by the city, so 9(f) is the language that applies to it.
The sales that happened while the bill was pending
These islands have been trading at prices where a $2.4 million district total, split across many lots, looks small. Even so, it has been part of every deal. Here are reported 2025 and 2026 sales on Sunset Islands 3 and 4, with dates taken from the publication dates of The Real Deal's coverage. A publication date is not a contract Effective Date, so the last column shows only roughly where each report falls relative to the September 2025 completion.
| Address | Island | Reported price | Reported | Relative to Sept 2025 completion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1541 West 22nd Street | IV | $16 million | March 2025 | Before |
| 1525 West 24th Street | III | $27.5 million | April 2025 | Before |
| 2288 Sunset Drive | III | $25.4 million | October 2025 | Around or after |
| 1745 West 24th Street | III | $34 million | June 2026 | After |
The homes in this table vary widely. The Real Deal reported that the plan for 1541 West 22nd Street, a 1941 house, was to demolish it and build a spec home. According to the outlet's 2026 report, 1745 West 24th Street was a newly completed 6,200-square-foot house. On a spec project like the first one, the original buyer may have resold the finished house before the assessment's installments run out. Each resale goes back through Paragraph 9(f).
None of these reports say how the parties handled the assessment, and nothing here suggests they handled it in any particular way. The point is that every deal on these two islands since 2015 has had this question in it, whether anyone raised it or not.
What the public record does not yet show
Several things buyers and sellers would want to know were not available in the city documents we reviewed as of October 2026:
- Whether C7 B passed. The draft acceptance resolution attached to the December 17, 2025 agenda still had a blank resolution number and adoption date.
- How the total is split among lots. The memos give the district total but no parcel count, no method for dividing the cost among lots, and no per-property amount.
- Installment terms. The documents reviewed give no installment schedule, interest rate or first tax-bill date.
These gaps decide which part of 9(f) applies. Clause (i) covers a certified lien and clause (ii) covers a finished project that has no lien yet, and if the city allows installments, the checkbox comes into play as well. The city's own records are where each of these will be settled.
Sunset Islands 1 and 2 are on a different track
The district covers only Sunset Islands 3 and 4. The 2018 memo uses those two islands as its example of an owner-approved undergrounding district. We found no record confirming whether Sunset Islands 1 and 2 have an equivalent district. That affects anyone weighing a house on Island II, such as the 1940 teardown at 1821 West 27th Street that The Real Deal reported sold for $34 million in October 2025, or 1425 West 27th Street, reported at $21.5 million that July. Those addresses are outside the 3 & 4 district.
There is a separate city project on Sunset Islands 2 and 3. That water, sewer and roadway project had a stated budget of $4,173,631.87, began in September 2025, and was targeted for fall 2026. A city notice dated September 8, 2026 said milling and resurfacing were complete, scheduled striping for September 10, and listed minor repairs as the last phase. We found no homeowner assessment tied to that project.
FAQ
Does Paragraph 9(f) apply to HOA assessments on the islands? No. The clause defines "public body" to exclude condominium and homeowners' associations.
Is there a Florida statute requiring sellers to disclose special assessments? The statute that came up in our research, section 689.301, covers known defects in a property's sanitary sewer lateral, not assessments. The AS IS contract does include a general seller representation about known facts that materially affect value and are not readily observable.
What is the 2015 resolution number for the district? Resolution No. 2015-29180, adopted October 14, 2015.
If you have a Sunset Islands 3 or 4 contract in front of you, or expect to soon, Andrea Tavella and the team at Vella Real Estate can go through Paragraph 9(f) and the installment checkbox with you, along with your attorney and title company, so the undergrounding bill is accounted for before closing day. Book an appointment.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
