You sit down at a sales gallery on Cocoanut Avenue or Main Street, the model of the finished tower lit up under glass, and the purchase agreement in front of you states a deposit schedule in clean percentages. Twenty percent now. Ten percent when the building tops off. The balance at closing. It reads like one commitment, made in stages. It is actually two very different pots of money, and Florida law treats them differently the moment your check clears.
Downtown Sarasota has nine major condo projects under construction or working through city approval right now, a mix that will eventually add several hundred new units to the skyline between Fruitville Road and the bayfront. Buyers signing contracts at The Edge, The High Line, Mira Mar Residences, One Park, SOTA, the Ritz-Carlton Residences at The Quay, the Waldorf Astoria Residences, The Palm 625, and Adagio are all making the same bet on delivery dates that stretch from late this year to 2029. The number on the contract's first page tells you what you owe. It does not tell you which portion of that money is legally untouchable and which portion is already inside the concrete.
The Ten Percent Line
Florida Statute 718.202 draws a hard boundary around condominium deposits. When a building has not been substantially completed, the first 10 percent of the purchase price a developer collects must sit in a separate escrow account, held by an independent escrow agent, and it cannot be spent on construction. Anything a buyer pays above that first 10 percent falls into a different category. It can lawfully be released to the developer for actual construction costs, provided the contract discloses that in writing and includes a specific legend on the signature page. The statute also bars that excess money from covering salaries, commissions, or advertising. It has to go into the building itself.
The Edge Sarasota, a 27-residence tower at 290 Cocoanut Avenue developed by Jebco Ventures with ORE Development, has a publicly disclosed deposit structure that makes this split concrete. Buyers pay 20 percent at signing, another 10 percent when the building tops off, and the balance at closing. The building topped out in December 2025, with active listings averaging around $3.4 million ahead of a fall 2026 delivery.
Run the math on a $3.4 million unit there and the two pots separate clearly.
| Payment | Percent of price | Dollar amount | What happens to it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial deposit at signing | 20% | $680,000 | First $340,000 held in escrow; remaining $340,000 may be used for construction once disclosed |
| Topping-off deposit | 10% | $340,000 | Not part of the protected 10%; available for construction |
| Balance at closing | 70% | $2,380,000 | Paid at closing, not deposit money |
By the time a buyer has paid the topping-off deposit, they have handed over $1,020,000 before ever seeing a certificate of occupancy. Of that, $340,000 sits in an escrow account they can, in most circumstances, recover. The other $680,000 is already framing, glass, and structured parking. That is not a flaw in The Edge's contract. It is precisely what the statute allows, and it is the same structure buyers will find, in different percentages, at most of the towers currently selling downtown.
The Clock Starts With the Documents, Not the Signature
Florida also gives condominium buyers a 15-day window to cancel a purchase contract and get a full refund, no explanation required. The detail that trips people up is when that window opens. It does not start on the date printed at the top of the contract. It starts when the buyer actually receives the full set of required condominium documents: the public offering statement, the declaration, the association bylaws, the budget, and the escrow agreement. If a developer's sales office sends the contract for signature before the full document package is assembled, the 15 days has not begun yet, no matter what date appears on the paperwork.
For a buyer moving through a purchase during a busy travel season, or reviewing documents remotely before a Sarasota visit, this matters. The practical step is tracking the date of full document receipt separately from the date of signature, and confirming with the closing attorney which date actually governs the cancellation window before assuming it has closed.
When the Escrow Itself Is the Problem
There is a further layer of protection that has nothing to do with a buyer's own paperwork and everything to do with how a developer's escrow agent structures the accounts. The statute requires that the protected first 10 percent and the excess deposits above that line be kept in properly segregated escrow arrangements. A Florida appellate decision, analyzed by the law firm Duane Morris, found that a developer who failed to maintain those accounts as legally distinct, instead of commingling a buyer's full 20 percent deposit into a single account, had violated the statute's escrow requirements. The court's remedy was significant: the purchaser was allowed to void the entire contract and recover the full deposit, including the portion already spent on construction, plus interest and legal fees.
That outcome does not depend on the buyer having done anything wrong. It depends on how the developer's escrow agent set up the accounts on the back end, something a buyer has no visibility into unless they or their attorney ask for it directly. A purchase agreement that looks identical to another building's contract can carry very different risk depending on whether the escrow agent is actually keeping the two tiers of deposit separate in practice, not just on paper.
A Skyline on Different Schedules
Delivery dates across downtown's nine active projects are not moving at the same pace, and one project illustrates why that matters for anyone holding a deposit through a multi-year build. SOTA, the 35-condo hotel and residential tower at Main Street and Goodrich Avenue developed by Trepp Development, was reported in 2023 as expected to complete construction by March 2026. That date has now passed, and current listings for the project show its completion date as still to be determined.
This is not a criticism of SOTA specifically. Large mixed-use towers slip their timelines for reasons that have nothing to do with financial trouble, from permitting delays to material lead times. The point for a buyer is structural. A deposit sitting in an escrow account for an extra six months or a year is still protected by statute, but it is also still tied up, still earning whatever interest the account generates rather than being available for another purchase or investment. Before signing at any of downtown's active projects, whether that is Mira Mar Residences on South Palm Avenue, where the city issued a construction permit in April 2026 for a 2028 completion, or One Park Residences at Quay Commons, targeting delivery in the first half of 2027, it is worth asking directly what contractual remedy exists if the completion date moves past a specific outer limit. Some contracts include an outside date after which a buyer can walk away and recover their full deposit. Not all of them do.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Sign
If my building's completion date slips, does my escrowed deposit come back automatically? Not on its own. Escrowed funds are released at closing, at a proper contract termination, or on default, according to the terms the contract spells out. If the agreement does not include an outside completion date that triggers a buyer's right to cancel, a missed timeline alone may not free up the money, even though it remains legally protected.
Does the 15-day cancellation right work the same way at every downtown project? The right itself is set by state law and applies broadly to condominium purchases before substantial completion, but the clock depends on when a buyer actually receives the complete set of condominium documents. Two buyers who sign contracts on the same day at two different towers can have different cancellation deadlines if one received their documents earlier than the other.
Are the deposit percentages the same at every tower currently selling? No. The Edge's published structure of 20 percent at signing, 10 percent at topping off, and the balance at closing is specific to that building's contract. Other developments set their own schedules and their own thresholds for when excess deposits become available for construction use. Each contract needs to be read on its own terms rather than assumed to match a neighboring project.
Buying into downtown Sarasota's current wave of new towers means buying into a legal structure most people only encounter once. Roger Pettingell's team has spent years walking clients through exactly these contracts, from the disclosure language on the signature page to the timing of the cancellation window, before a single dollar moves into escrow. If you are weighing a pre-construction purchase downtown and want a second set of eyes on the deposit terms before you sign, Roger Pettingell is a direct and useful place to start that conversation.
