Florida community association law continues to develop through legislation, statutory amendments, administrative action, regulatory guidance, and court decisions.
This section provides educational updates for condominium associations, homeowners associations, cooperative associations, mobile home communities, boards, officers, managers, committees, and association professionals.
Updates involving Chapter 718, condominium governance, elections, official records, reserves, milestone inspections, Structural Integrity Reserve Studies, safety requirements, insurance, and association operations.
Updates concerning Chapter 720, HOA governance, meetings, elections, records, reserves, fining, architectural review, collections, and community operations.
Developments affecting Chapter 719, cooperative governance, records, reserves, elections, proprietary leases, shareholders, and occupancy matters.
Updates concerning Chapter 723, prospectuses, lot rental matters, homeowners’ committees, notices, mediation, community rules, and park operations.
The following should be updated or replaced each year rather than creating multiple competing evergreen pages:
A statutory amendment does not always affect every community or document in the same way. Boards should determine whether a change applies to their association and whether policies, forms, contracts, governing documents, meeting procedures, or recordkeeping practices should be reviewed.
About this page. This page 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 page 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 page 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 page 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 a general page 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 on this page 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 page 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 .
