Key Findings

• The controlling condominium statute is traditional and sparse. It imposes a general duty to provide for the maintenance of common elements through the bylaws, not a fixed-schedule structural inspection.
• Building-code enforcement isn't uniform statewide. The State Building Code is a minimum standard, but adoption and enforcement rest with cities, townships, and counties that elect to run a building department, and many rural areas have none.
• The State Fire Marshal moved out of the Attorney General's office. As of 2023 the office sits within the North Dakota Insurance Department, and its routine inspections target schools, childcare, liquor establishments, and state buildings, not private residential condominiums.
• Elevators are now regulated statewide. This is the single meaningful 2025 building-safety development, and it reaches condominium buildings with conveyances.
• No reserve-study mandate exists. Reserve funding and inspection cadence are set by the declaration and board.

Details

Section 1: Overview — Condo safety inspections in North Dakota

North Dakota has not enacted a Surfside-style milestone or structural inspection statute for condominiums, and it has no structural integrity reserve study (SIRS) requirement of the kind Florida adopted in 2022.¹ Condominium safety obligations in the state come instead from four overlapping sources: the association's general duty to maintain the common elements under the North Dakota Condominium Ownership Act, building and fire codes that are adopted and enforced largely at local option, insurer requirements, and the recorded declaration and bylaws.¹

The condominium statute, N.D.C.C. ch. 47-04.1, is a traditional and comparatively sparse ownership act, so safety obligations lean heavily on codes, insurance, and the declaration rather than on a detailed statutory inspection regime.¹ The physical drivers that make structural maintenance important in North Dakota (extreme cold, freeze-thaw cycles, and heavy snow loads) are addressed through building codes and insurance underwriting rather than through any statutory inspection mandate.

Nationally, North Dakota sits at the opposite end of the spectrum from statutory-mandate states like Florida, in the group of states with no periodic condominium structural inspection requirement.² The sections below set out the statutory and regulatory framework, the specific compliance obligations and their sources, recent legislative and judicial activity, and North Dakota's position in the national landscape.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

2A. The North Dakota Condominium Ownership Act: a thin condominium statute

North Dakota condominiums are governed by the North Dakota Condominium Ownership Act, N.D.C.C. ch. 47-04.1.¹ It's a traditional condominium framework, not the Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act (UCIOA) and not the 1980 Uniform Condominium Act. The chapter runs through section 47-04.1-16 and addresses formation, the declaration, common-element ownership, assessments and liens, and administration.¹

The maintenance duty is functional rather than prescriptive: N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-07 requires the unit owners or the administrative body they establish to "provide by bylaws for the maintenance of common elements, limited common elements where applicable, assessment of expenses, payment of losses, division of profits, disposition of hazard insurance proceeds, and similar matters."¹

Structural components such as bearing walls, columns, floors, roofs, foundations, and elevator equipment are treated as common elements and fall outside the individual unit under N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-06, so their upkeep is an association responsibility allocated through the bylaws.¹

The Act's maintenance and insurance provisions are sparse relative to modern uniform acts. It references the disposition of hazard insurance proceeds but doesn't impose a detailed property or liability insurance schedule, and it doesn't impose a scheduled structural or milestone inspection. The maintenance obligation is a general duty, not a fixed-interval statutory inspection. The Act doesn't address reserves or reserve studies, and North Dakota doesn't mandate a reserve study for condominium associations.¹

2B. Building codes, fire and life safety, and elevators

North Dakota adopts a State Building Code under N.D.C.C. ch. 54-21.3, based on the International Code Council family of codes.³ The state code functions as a uniform minimum standard, but adoption and enforcement are substantially at local option. Under N.D.C.C. § 54-21.3-05, a city or township may administer and enforce the code only within its jurisdiction, and a county may enforce it in areas not covered by a city or township.³

The North Dakota Division of Community Services within the Department of Commerce maintains and updates the code but doesn't enforce it; plan review, permitting, and inspection rest with local jurisdictions that elect to adopt and enforce a building department, and many rural areas operate without one.⁴

The current code is built on the 2021 International Codes, and the state has adopted the 2024 International Codes to take effect January 1, 2026.⁴ Jurisdiction over multifamily and high-rise condominiums therefore rests with the local building official where a building department exists, and enforcement isn't uniform statewide.

Fire and life safety is governed by the fire code adopted in the North Dakota Administrative Code (article 45-18) and by the State Fire Marshal.⁵ Contrary to older descriptions placing the Fire Marshal in the Attorney General's office, the 2023 Legislative Assembly moved the Office of the State Fire Marshal back to the North Dakota Insurance Department, where it now sits.⁶ The Fire Marshal's ongoing inspection duties are directed at state buildings, public and private schools, childcare facilities, and licensed liquor establishments, not at private residential condominium buildings.⁷ Routine fire and life-safety oversight of residential condominium buildings is handled by local fire departments, and fire-protection-system plan review is handled locally in ten authority-having-jurisdiction areas (Bismarck, Devils Lake, Dickinson, Fargo, Grand Forks, Mandan, Minot City FD/Minot Rural FD, West Fargo, Southern Valley, and Williston) rather than by the State Fire Marshal.⁷

Elevator safety changed materially in 2025. Before then, North Dakota had no comprehensive statewide elevator inspection program; per neutral testimony filed with the State Electrical Board on Senate Bill 2336, an industry group in May 2024 advised that "there are only two states in the United States that do not require conveyance (elevators and the like) inspections and ND was one."⁸ Elevator inspection was driven by local jurisdiction, insurers, and private contract. Senate Bill 2336 (2025) created a statewide conveyance inspection and registration program administered by the State Electrical Board under N.D.C.C. ch. 43-09.⁹ These regimes impose obligations at construction and for specific systems (fire protection and elevators), but they don't create a comprehensive periodic structural inspection of the building envelope of the kind Florida mandates.

2C. Insurance, the declaration, and the practical inspection drivers

The Condominium Ownership Act's insurance content is limited to the treatment of hazard insurance proceeds through the bylaws under N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-07; it doesn't prescribe coverage minimums.¹ In practice, property and casualty carriers set the operative inspection conditions, requiring roof, boiler, sprinkler, and general condition inspections as underwriting conditions. Those requirements are market-driven, not statutory.

The recorded declaration and bylaws are the operative documents for most associations: the inspection cadence and the allocation of maintenance responsibility between the association and unit owners are set by the declaration and the board, not by statute.¹ The North Dakota Nonprofit Corporation Act, N.D.C.C. ch. 10-33, applies where the association is incorporated as a nonprofit, but it governs corporate formalities only and imposes no inspection duty.¹⁰

The operational takeaway is that, in the absence of a statutory inspection mandate, the actual inspection obligations of a North Dakota condominium come from building and fire codes (at local option), insurer conditions, and the declaration read together.

Section 3: Compliance obligations

A. Structural and building-envelope obligations

The association's core structural obligation is a general duty to maintain, repair, and replace the common elements, exercised through the bylaws under N.D.C.C. § 47-04.1-07, combined with compliance with the State Building Code at construction and alteration (source type: statutory plus building code).¹ This is a general maintenance standard and building-code compliance obligation, not a periodic statutory structural inspection. Where a local building department exists, alterations and new construction require permitting and inspection under N.D.C.C. ch. 54-21.3 (source type: building code, local option).³

B. Fire and life-safety obligations

Condominium buildings must comply with the fire code as adopted in the North Dakota Administrative Code, article 45-18 (source type: fire code).⁵ Ongoing fire and life-safety inspection of residential condominium buildings is carried out by local fire departments, with the State Fire Marshal's routine inspection role directed at other occupancy types (source type: fire code, local enforcement).⁷ Insurers commonly require documentation of fire alarm and sprinkler maintenance as a coverage condition (source type: insurance-driven).

C. Elevator and mechanical-systems obligations

Condominiums with elevators or other conveyances are subject to the registration, permitting, certificate-of-operation, and periodic inspection requirements of N.D.C.C. ch. 43-09, as created by Senate Bill 2336 and administered by the State Electrical Board (source type: statutory).⁹ Elevators located in single-family private residences are excluded.⁹ Mechanical systems such as boilers are typically inspected as a condition of insurance coverage (source type: insurance-driven).

D. Reserve, insurance, and disclosure obligations

North Dakota imposes no statutory reserve-study or reserve-funding requirement on condominium associations; reserve practice is set by the declaration and board (source type: declaration-driven).¹ The Condominium Ownership Act addresses the disposition of hazard insurance proceeds but doesn't mandate specific coverage; coverage levels are driven by the declaration and carrier requirements (source type: declaration-driven and insurance-driven).¹ Disclosure obligations arise primarily from the recorded declaration and bylaws and from general real property law, not from a condominium-specific inspection-disclosure statute (source type: declaration-driven).

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

No bill introduced in the 68th (2023) or 69th (2025) Legislative Assembly would have created a Florida-style milestone or structural inspection regime or a structural integrity reserve study requirement for condominiums, and none amended the Condominium Ownership Act to add maintenance, insurance, or reserve inspection duties. The single recent enactment that changes safety-inspection obligations for condominium buildings is the statewide elevator program described below.

A. Recent bills

B. Recent appellate rulings

No North Dakota Supreme Court opinion decided in the past 36 months squarely addresses a condominium association's duty to maintain common elements, building-envelope or water-intrusion failures, or construction-defect claims bearing on association maintenance obligations. Because North Dakota's Court of Appeals sits only rarely and only on cases assigned to it by the Supreme Court, appellate condominium law is developed by the Supreme Court, and no qualifying decision exists in the relevant window.¹²

C. Active legislative debates

There's no active proposal in North Dakota to create a milestone inspection, structural inspection, or reserve-study mandate for condominiums, and post-Surfside momentum hasn't produced such a bill in the state; the 2025 legislative attention to building safety was directed at elevators through Senate Bill 2336 rather than at building-envelope structural inspection.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

North Dakota is a no-statutory-mandate state for condominium structural inspections. It stands apart from statutory-mandate states such as Florida, which through Senate Bill 4-D in 2022 adopted a milestone structural inspection requirement (Fla. Stat. § 553.899) and a structural integrity reserve study requirement (Fla. Stat. § 718.112) for condominium and cooperative buildings of three or more stories,¹³ and from elevated-element-inspection states such as California, which requires periodic inspection of exterior elevated elements under Civil Code § 5551.¹⁴

For multi-state operators, the practical implication is twofold: a firm managing Florida condominiums must not assume that Florida's milestone or SIRS obligations exist in North Dakota, and conversely the absence of a North Dakota mandate doesn't eliminate liability, because the association's duty to maintain, locally adopted building and fire codes, insurer conditions, and the new elevator program still apply. North Dakota currently shows no legislative momentum toward a condominium structural inspection or reserve-study mandate. That absence matters for federal financing too: FHA and VA condominium project approval independently reviews reserve funding and physical condition, so a North Dakota association relying solely on declaration-driven reserve practice may still need to document reserves to keep a project's federal approval current.¹⁵

Recommendations

1. Treat the declaration as the primary inspection document. Because North Dakota imposes no statutory structural inspection or reserve-study mandate, boards and managers should read the declaration and bylaws to identify the maintenance and inspection obligations that actually bind the association, and calendar them. Benchmark that would change this: enactment of a statute amending N.D.C.C. ch. 47-04.1 to add an inspection or reserve requirement.
2. Confirm the local building and fire authority for each property. Determine whether the city, township, or county running the building has an active building department and which fire authority holds plan-review jurisdiction, then align permitting and fire-system maintenance to that authority. In jurisdictions with no building department, the association bears more of the practical burden of verifying construction and alteration quality.
3. Act now on the elevator program. For any condominium with a conveyance, register with the State Electrical Board and build annual certificate-of-operation and inspection costs into the budget ahead of the phase-in dates (acceptance testing from August 1, 2026; five-year full-load testing from August 1, 2032). Benchmark that would change staging: publication of State Electrical Board rules and fee schedules under N.D.C.C. ch. 43-09.
4. Treat insurer conditions as the de facto inspection regime. Because carriers, not the state, drive most periodic inspections, review renewal requirements annually and document roof, boiler, and sprinkler inspections to preserve coverage.
5. For multi-state portfolios, don't port Florida or California obligations into North Dakota, and don't assume the absence of a mandate removes liability. Maintain a state-by-state matrix distinguishing statutory-mandate states from North Dakota's declaration-and-code model.

Caveats

• The task premise that the State Fire Marshal sits within the Attorney General's office is out of date. The 2023 Legislature returned the office to the North Dakota Insurance Department, and this page reflects the current, verified placement.
• The exact date of the Governor's signature and Secretary of State filing for Senate Bill 2336 wasn't confirmed from a primary source; the enacted status and July 1, 2025 effective date are confirmed by the Legislative Council's official effective-dates listing.
• The finding that no qualifying North Dakota Supreme Court condominium-maintenance decision exists in the past 36 months is based on targeted searching of ndcourts.gov and secondary legal news; a full-text opinion search on ndcourts.gov is advisable before relying on the absence of case law in litigation.
• The Florida and California references describe other states' regimes for positioning only and aren't North Dakota law.

1. N.D.C.C. ch. 47-04.1, Condominium Ownership of Real Property (official North Dakota Century Code, ndlegis.gov), including §§ 47-04.1-06 and 47-04.1-07 ↩
2. North Dakota Court System, Court of Appeals (ndcourts.gov) (structure of North Dakota appellate courts) ↩
3. N.D.C.C. ch. 54-21.3, State Building Code (official North Dakota Century Code, ndlegis.gov), including § 54-21.3-05 (enforcement by city, township, or county) ↩
4. North Dakota Department of Commerce, Division of Community Services, Building Codes (commerce.nd.gov) (state code as minimum standard; local enforcement; 2024 International Codes effective January 1, 2026) ↩
5. North Dakota Administrative Code, article 45-18 (Fire Marshal), chapter 45-18-01 Fire Prevention (ndlegis.gov) ↩
6. Office of the State Fire Marshal, About Us (firemarshal.nd.gov) ("In 2023, the 68th Legislative Assembly approved legislation that moved the Office of the State Fire Marshal back to the Insurance Department.") ↩
7. Office of the State Fire Marshal, Inspections (firemarshal.nd.gov) (Fire Marshal inspection scope and local authority-having-jurisdiction plan review) ↩
8. 2025 Senate Industry and Business, SB 2336 hearing record and testimony (ndlegis.gov) ("there are only two states in the United States that do not require conveyance ... inspections and ND was one") ↩
9. Enrolled Senate Bill No. 2336, 69th Legislative Assembly (2025), enacting eight new sections to N.D.C.C. ch. 43-09 (ndlegis.gov) (registration, certificate of operation, inspection and testing, single-family exclusion; Senate 46-1, House 77-15-2) ↩
10. N.D.C.C. ch. 10-33, North Dakota Nonprofit Corporation Act (official North Dakota Century Code, ndlegis.gov) ↩
11. North Dakota Legislative Council, Effective Dates of 2025 Legislation (ndlegis.gov) (SB 2336 effective July 1, 2025, with phased-in application schedule) ↩
12. North Dakota Supreme Court Opinions (ndcourts.gov) (searchable opinions; no qualifying condominium-maintenance decision in the past 36 months) ↩
13. Florida Senate Bill 4-D (2022) (flsenate.gov), creating the milestone inspection requirement (Fla. Stat. § 553.899) and structural integrity reserve study requirement (Fla. Stat. § 718.112) ↩
14. California Civil Code § 5551 (leginfo.legislature.ca.gov), inspection of exterior elevated elements ↩
15. HUD, FHA Condominiums (insurance coverage, financial condition, and physical property condition review; projects must comply with applicable state law) ↩