HOA Board Meeting Checklist (Chapter 720)

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

Checklist
Published September 26, 2026
Reviewed by Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA, September 26, 2026
Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026
Applies to: HOAs · Master associations

Chapter 720 is shorter than Chapter 718 on meetings, and the gaps matter more than the text. HOA directors who served on a condominium board, or who read a condominium article, routinely assume they have tools Chapter 720 never gave them. This checklist runs an HOA board meeting against the statute, and then lists the rules that are not there.

Download the PDFThe PDF is a designed, printable copy for the board packet, the bulletin board or your meeting portfolio. On screen, you can tick the boxes below; nothing you tick is saved or sent anywhere.

For the version that covers all three chapters side by side, use the general board meeting checklist. This one stays inside Chapter 720. Section 720.303(2) opens by saying the bylaws "shall provide the following" for notice and, if they do not, "shall be deemed to include the following." So the statutory notice rules apply whether or not your bylaws repeat them, and your bylaws may be stricter.

Is this even a meeting?

Treat any gathering of a quorum of the board to conduct association business as a board meeting.The test is in the statute, and it does not depend on what the gathering is called. A quorum of directors meeting a vendor on site to decide something is a board meeting.§ 720.303(2)(a)
Do not let directors cast votes by e-mail.Directors may use e-mail as a means of communication but may not cast a vote on an association matter via e-mail.§ 720.303(2)(a)
Do not use proxies or secret ballots at a board meeting.Directors may not vote by proxy or by secret ballot, except that secret ballots may be used in the election of officers.§ 720.303(2)(c)3.
Hold the meeting at a location accessible to a physically handicapped person if a person with a right to attend requests it.§ 720.303(2)(a)

Noticing the meeting

Write the notice so it specifically identifies the agenda items.The statute uses those words. A notice listing "business of the association" identifies nothing.§ 720.303(2)(c)1.
Post the notice in a conspicuous place in the community at least 48 hours in advance of the meeting.Chapter 720 says 48 hours in advance. It does not use the word "continuous" that Chapter 718 uses, but take it down early at your peril.§ 720.303(2)(c)1.
If the notice is not posted in a conspicuous place in the community, mail or deliver notice of each board meeting to each member at least 7 days before the meeting.This is the alternative, not an addition. Communities with no practical posting location are on a 7-day clock for every ordinary board meeting.§ 720.303(2)(c)1.
Confirm whether the emergency exception is being relied on, and document the facts.Both the 48-hour posting and the 7-day mail alternative are subject to "except in an emergency." Chapter 720 stops there. See the section below on what it does not give you.§ 720.303(2)(c)1.
For a meeting at which special assessments will be considered, or at which amendments to rules regarding parcel use will be considered, mail, deliver or electronically transmit the notice to the members and parcel owners and post it conspicuously on the property not less than 14 days before the meeting.Both steps. Closed-circuit cable broadcast may substitute for the posting.§ 720.303(2)(c)2.
Take the consent to electronic notice in writing.The HOA provision expressly requires the member's consent to electronic transmission to be in writing. The condominium and cooperative provisions require consent but do not say writing.§ 720.303(2)(c)
Check for a pending owner petition before setting the agenda.If 20 percent of the total voting interests petition the board to address an item of business, the board must take the item up on an agenda at its next regular or special board meeting and not later than 60 days after receipt of the petition.§ 720.303(2)(d)
Photograph the posted notice with a date stamp and keep it with the meeting file.

Committees and architectural review

Notice and open any committee meeting at which a final decision will be made regarding the expenditure of association funds.The meeting rules of subsection (2) apply to it in full, including the 48-hour posting.§ 720.303(2)(a); § 720.303(2)(c)1.
Notice and open every meeting of a body vested with the power to approve or disapprove architectural decisions with respect to a specific parcel of residential property owned by a member.This is the provision HOA boards miss most often. An architectural review committee that decides applications is covered, and its meetings carry the same 48-hour posted notice with agenda items specifically identified.§ 720.303(2)(a); § 720.303(2)(c)1.
Identify the applications to be decided in the posted ARC agenda.If the agenda must specifically identify items for a board meeting, the same requirement follows an architectural body through the cross-reference.
Do not condition architectural review on the owner first obtaining a building permit.Effective July 1, 2026, an association or its architectural or construction improvement committee may not require that a building permit have been issued as a prerequisite to the association's review of proposed construction or improvements on a parcel.§ 720.3035(1)(c) (Ch. 2026-63)
Record the ARC's decisions in minutes and keep them with the association's records.§ 720.303(3); § 720.303(4)
Check whether a committee that only recommends, and decides nothing, is nonetheless opened by your bylaws.Chapter 720 reaches committees that make final spending decisions and architectural bodies. Your documents may reach further.

What Chapter 720 does not give you

Do not add an item to the agenda at the table on a majority-plus-one vote. Chapter 720 has no such mechanism.The majority-plus-one emergency agenda vote is a condominium and cooperative device. It appears at § 718.112(2)(c)1. and § 719.106(1)(c). Section 720.303 contains no equivalent, so the fix for an HOA is a properly noticed special meeting.§ 718.112(2)(c)1.; § 719.106(1)(c); no equivalent in § 720.303
Do not assume a later ratification cures an unnoticed HOA action, because Chapter 720 imposes no ratification duty and grants no ratification effect.Chapters 718 and 719 expressly require emergency action to be noticed and ratified at the next regular board meeting. Chapter 720 says nothing. Ratifying anyway is good practice and good evidence. It is not a statutory cure.no equivalent in § 720.303
Do not rely on a quarterly meeting requirement. Chapter 720 does not impose one.Section 718.112(2)(c) requires quarterly board meetings for residential condominium associations of more than 10 units. Your HOA bylaws may impose a frequency; the statute does not.§ 720.303(2)
Look to § 720.306(10), not § 720.303, for the owner recording right.Section 720.303(2) contains no recording right. Section 720.306(10) provides that any parcel owner may tape record or videotape meetings of the board and of the members, and the board may adopt reasonable rules governing taping.§ 720.306(10)
Do not copy the condominium video-conference notice contents into an HOA notice as a statutory requirement.The hyperlink, dial-in number and physical address trio is § 718.112(2)(c)1. Chapter 720 has no parallel notice-content rule. Including all three anyway is sensible; presenting it to owners as what the statute requires is not accurate.§ 718.112(2)(c)1.; no equivalent in § 720.303
Confirm with counsel before treating a director who joins by telephone as counting toward the HOA quorum.Chapters 718 and 719 both say a board or committee member participating by telephone or real-time videoconferencing counts toward a quorum and may vote as if physically present. Section 720.303 and § 720.306 do not carry that sentence, and the answer for an HOA may turn on Chapter 617 and on your bylaws.
Check the HOA emergency powers section against the condominium one before acting under it.Section 720.316(1) runs (a) through (k) and lacks the condominium evacuation and contract-on-behalf powers. Special assessment without an owner vote sits at (1)(j) and borrowing at (1)(k), where § 718.1265 and § 719.128 place them at (1)(l) and (1)(m).§ 720.316(1)

At the meeting

Confirm a quorum of the board and record who is present and how each director appeared.
Record in the minutes that the notice was posted, or mailed, and when.Chapter 720 has no affidavit requirement like the condominium 14-day affidavit. The minute entry and the dated photograph are what you will have.
Let members speak on all designated items.The right to attend includes the right to speak with reference to all designated items.§ 720.303(2)(b)
Apply only written reasonable rules to member statements, adopted in advance, and consider a sign-up sheet.The statute expressly contemplates rules expanding the right to speak and governing frequency, duration and manner, and expressly mentions a sign-up sheet.§ 720.303(2)(b)
Close the meeting only for a meeting between the board or a committee and the association's attorney to discuss proposed or pending litigation, or a board meeting held to discuss personnel matters.Those are the only two grounds. There is no general executive session for contract talks or delinquency lists.§ 720.303(2)(b)
For each motion, record the mover, the second, and the vote or abstention of each director present.§ 720.303(3)
Record any conflict disclosure and recusal, and the vote of the remaining directors.§ 720.3033(2); § 617.0832
Confirm bids are in hand where the expenditure crosses the HOA threshold.The HOA threshold is 10 percent of the total annual budget including reserves, not the condominium's 5 percent.§ 720.3055(1)
Confirm each director has met the Chapter 720 education requirement.Section 720.3033(1) prescribes subject matter but, unlike the condominium provision, offers no written-certification alternative and states no initial hour count in the statute itself.§ 720.3033(1)

The first board meeting after the annual meeting

Identify the first board meeting, excluding the organizational meeting, that follows the annual meeting of the members.This is a specific meeting with a specific statutory duty attached to it. Organizational meetings held immediately after the annual meeting do not count.§ 720.303(2)(e)
Put marketable record title on that agenda by name.The board shall consider the desirability of filing notices to preserve the covenants or restrictions affecting the community from extinguishment under the Marketable Record Title Act, chapter 712.§ 720.303(2)(e)
Take a vote, and if the board decides to preserve, authorize and direct the appropriate officer to file notice in accordance with § 720.3032.The statute contemplates both the consideration and the authorization. A board that discusses it and does nothing has at least satisfied the consideration duty, but the covenants keep aging.§ 720.303(2)(e); § 720.3032
Record the consideration and the vote in the minutes every year, even when the answer is no.If covenants are later lost to MRTA, the minutes for this meeting are the first document anyone will ask for.
Ask counsel to date the community's root of title before the board votes.Thirty years runs from the root of title, not from the date the declaration was recorded, and the two are often different.

Records, retention and posting

Maintain minutes of all meetings of the members and of the board in written form or another form that can be converted into written form within a reasonable time.§ 720.303(3)
Keep the official records for at least 7 years unless the governing documents require longer.Chapter 720 has no permanent-retention category for minutes. Chapter 718 does. An HOA that discards minutes at 7 years is within the statute and will still regret it.§ 720.303(4)(a)
Post official records to the association website or application if the association has 100 or more parcels.The HOA threshold is 100 parcels. The condominium threshold is 25 units. Cooperatives have no posting obligation at all.§ 720.303(4)(b)
Diary the 10 business day deadline for any records request.Chapter 720 says business days. Chapters 718 and 719 say working days.§ 720.303(5)
Check whether the request arrived by certified mail, return receipt requested, before assessing exposure.The HOA rebuttable presumption of willful failure arises only where the written request was submitted by certified mail, return receipt requested. The condominium and cooperative presumptions have no such condition.§ 720.303(5)
Apply the statutory copy charges rather than inventing a fee, and check the record against the exemption list before releasing it.Up to 25 cents per page on the association's photocopier, personnel costs not exceeding $20 per hour and only where retrieval and copying exceed half an hour, and no personnel charge at all for a request producing 25 or fewer pages.§ 720.303(5)(g); § 720.303(5)(g)1.-9.

Statutes and authorities referenced

§ 720.303(2)(a), Fla. Stat. (when a board meeting occurs, open meetings, committees and architectural bodies)
§ 720.303(2)(b), Fla. Stat. (right to attend and speak; attorney-client and personnel exceptions)
§ 720.303(2)(c)1., Fla. Stat. (48-hour posting and the 7-day mail alternative)
§ 720.303(2)(c)2., Fla. Stat. (14-day notice for special assessments and parcel-use rules)
§ 720.303(2)(c)3., Fla. Stat. (no proxy or secret ballot voting by directors; committees and architectural bodies)
§ 720.303(2)(d), Fla. Stat. (20 percent petition to agenda an item)
§ 720.303(2)(e), § 720.3032, Fla. Stat. (marketable record title consideration and notice)
§ 720.303(3), Fla. Stat. (minutes and recording each director's vote or abstention)
§ 720.303(4), § 720.303(5), Fla. Stat. (official records, retention, website posting, records requests and copy charges)
§ 720.306(10), Fla. Stat. (parcel owner right to tape record or videotape meetings)
§ 720.3033(1), § 720.3033(2), Fla. Stat. (director education and conflicts of interest)
§ 720.3035(1)(c), Fla. Stat. (no building permit prerequisite to architectural review)
§ 720.3055(1), Fla. Stat. (HOA competitive bidding threshold)
§ 720.316(1), Fla. Stat. (HOA emergency powers)

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes advises Southwest Florida homeowners associations and master associations on meeting notice, committee and architectural review procedure, covenant preservation under chapter 712, and the records that support a board decision. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Corporate Governance page.

About this article. This article is published by Hamilton Mikes, P.A. for general educational purposes. It is not legal advice, it is not a legal opinion, and it is not a substitute for advice from a lawyer who has reviewed your association's governing documents and the facts of your situation. Reading it, downloading it, or corresponding with the firm about it does not create an attorney-client relationship. No such relationship arises until the firm and the client have signed a written engagement agreement. Please do not send confidential or time-sensitive information to the firm until a conflicts check has been completed and an engagement is confirmed in writing; information sent before that point may not be treated as privileged.

Scope and currency. This article addresses Florida law as applied to Florida community associations, and the firm is licensed to practice in Florida only. Nothing here should be taken as a statement of the law of any other jurisdiction. Florida's community association statutes have been amended in every regular session since 2021, and subsection numbering has moved more than once in that period. Each article states the edition of the Florida Statutes it was written against. The law may have changed after that date, an appellate court may have construed a provision differently, and an administrative rule or a local ordinance may impose requirements this article does not address.

Your governing documents control. Much of what governs a Florida association is not in the statutes at all. Declarations, articles of incorporation, bylaws, rules, plats and recorded amendments differ from community to community, and on many questions they set the rule while the statute sets only a floor or a default. A procedure that is correct in one association may be a breach of the documents in the association next door. No general article can tell you which is which for your community.

Why general information is not advice. Legal questions are resolved by applying the law to particular facts as a judge, jury, arbitrator or hearing officer finds them. An outcome that appears clear in the abstract frequently turns on the documents, the chronology, the board's own prior conduct, and the procedural posture, none of which an article can anticipate. A lawyer supplies what information cannot: the judgment to identify which facts matter, the experience to know how a court or the Division is likely to treat them, the ability to choose among the courses of action actually available, and the advocacy to carry the association's position through negotiation, hearing or trial.

The standard of care, and the protection the statute attaches to counsel. A director of a Florida community association is held to the standard in section 617.0830, Florida Statutes: to act in good faith, in a manner the director reasonably believes to be in the best interests of the corporation, and to discharge the duties of the office with the care an ordinary prudent person in a like position would reasonably believe appropriate under similar circumstances. That standard is measured against the decision the board actually faced, on the record actually before it. The same statute supplies the protection that goes with the duty. Under section 617.0830(4) and (5)(b), a director who has no knowledge making reliance unwarranted is entitled to rely on information, opinions, reports and statements prepared or presented by legal counsel retained by the association as to matters the director reasonably believes are within counsel's professional competence. The Legislature has written the prudent course into the statute. A board that obtains advice on its own documents and its own facts, and acts on that advice, is standing on ground the statute expressly protects. Nothing on this website confers that protection. General information, however carefully prepared, is not advice on your declaration, your amendments, your board's history or your dispute, and a director who relies on it in place of counsel forgoes a statutory protection that was available for the asking.

Personal exposure is real. Service on an association board is usually uncompensated, but volunteer status is not itself immunity. Under section 617.0834, Florida Statutes, a director or an officer is not personally liable in monetary damages for a statement, vote, decision, or failure to act in that role unless two things are both true: the director or officer breached or failed to perform the duties of the office, and that breach was a violation of the criminal law, a transaction from which the director or officer derived an improper personal benefit, conscious disregard or willful misconduct in a proceeding brought by or in the right of the corporation, or recklessness or bad faith in a proceeding brought by anyone else. That protection turns on how the director acted, not on whether the director was paid. Chapters 718, 719 and 720 add consequences of their own, including removal from office, civil penalties assessed against the individual for certain willful and knowing violations, and in defined circumstances criminal liability. Whether any of that reaches a particular director depends entirely on the facts and on the director's conduct. The practical point is narrower and more useful: the decisions that generate this exposure — levying an assessment, enforcing a covenant, denying a transfer, withholding a record, entering a unit, terminating a contract, signing for construction work — are precisely the decisions on which general information is least adequate, and on which counsel costs least relative to what is at stake.

No guarantee; prior results. The firm makes no representation or warranty that the information in this article is complete, current or applicable to any particular matter, and disclaims liability to any person for any action taken or not taken in reliance on it. Any description of prior results does not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any other matter; every case turns on its own facts, documents and record.

Do not act on this article alone. If your association faces a decision of consequence, obtain advice from a Florida-licensed attorney who has read your governing documents and the relevant record before the board votes, signs, sends or forecloses. Hamilton Mikes, P.A. represents community associations throughout Southwest Florida and can be reached at 239-594-7227.

HOA Board Meeting Checklist: Chapter 720 Notice, Committees and the Rules That Are Not There