Assessment Collection and Liens: What Each Legislative Session Actually Changed

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

• Published September 26, 2026
• Reviewed by Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA, September 26, 2026
• Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026
• Applies to: Condominiums · HOAs · Cooperatives

This page is current through the 2026 regular session and the amendments that took effect July 1, 2026. The collection sequence Florida associations follow today was built by SB 56 in the 2021 session and has not been rewritten since. What has moved is the subsection numbering, and a set of rules around the edges: estoppel certificates, financial reporting windows, and the enforcement procedures that sit next to collection. The 2026 session added nothing here.

Where collection law stands after the 2026 session

Three steps, in order, in all three chapters. Before an association may charge an owner for its attorney fees on a past due assessment, it must deliver a written notice of late assessment giving the owner 30 days to pay without fees. Before it may record a claim of lien, it must deliver a notice of intent to record a claim of lien by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, and by first-class mail, and wait 45 days. Before it may foreclose, it must give a further 45 days' written notice.

The money rules are equally settled. Unpaid assessments bear interest at the rate in the declaration or cooperative documents, capped at the rate allowed by law, and at 18 percent a year if the documents are silent. If the documents authorize it, the association may also charge an administrative late fee of up to the greater of $25 or 5 percent of each delinquent installment. Any payment the association accepts is applied first to accrued interest, then to the administrative late fee, then to costs and reasonable attorney fees, and only then to the delinquent assessment itself.

None of those figures changed between 2021 and 2026. The lesson is not that the law is unstable but that the citations in the association's collection file probably are. Our guide to the statutory collection notices sets out the current forms, and the written collection policy is where the discretionary decisions belong.

2026 session: no change to assessment collection

Say this plainly to a board that has heard otherwise. No bill amending the collection or lien provisions of Chapters 718, 719 or 720 passed in the 2026 regular session.

The bill boards ask about is HB 657, the community association omnibus. In its final committee substitute it carried HOA termination and dissolution procedures, governing-document requirements, conflict disclosures, a community association court program, Kaufman language and changes to presuit mediation. It passed the House 108 to 2 on March 5, 2026 and died in Senate Rules on March 13, 2026. CS/SB 1498, on records violations and electronic voting, died in Senate Appropriations the same day.

Two 2026 chapter laws do appear in the history lines of these chapters, and neither changes collection practice. Chapter 2026-14, the reviser's bill from SB 104, took effect May 12, 2026 and made technical corrections touching §§ 718.111, 718.112, 718.501, 719.106 and 720.303. Chapter 2026-168, from CS/CS/HB 797, rewrote Chapter 617, the Not For Profit Corporation Act, and made conforming amendments to §§ 718.111, 718.3027 and 720.3033. An association looking at a statute history line that now ends in a 2026 citation should not assume the text it relies on changed.

2025 session: HB 913 left the collection statutes alone

CS/CS/HB 913, Chapter 2025-175, was approved June 23, 2025 and took effect July 1, 2025, with the Division online-account provisions effective October 1, 2025. It was the largest community association bill since 2024, and it did not touch § 718.116, § 718.121, § 719.108 or § 720.3085. The history line on § 718.116 still ends at Chapter 2023-203, § 718.121 at Chapter 2024-244, and § 720.3085 at Chapter 2024-221.

Two HB 913 changes reach a collection calendar indirectly. The financial report delivery window for condominiums moved to 180 days after fiscal year end under § 718.111(13). It did not move for anyone else: § 720.303(7) and § 719.104(4) are still 120 days, so a management calendar built on 180 days makes every HOA and cooperative report late. HB 913 also lengthened the resale rescission period for non-developer sales from 3 days to 7, which changes how often an estoppel certificate has to be reissued.

2024 session: both omnibus bills touched the lien sections

HB 1021, Chapter 2024-244, amended § 718.121 at section 12 and § 718.303 at section 19. HB 1203, Chapter 2024-221, amended § 720.3085 at section 10 and rewrote § 720.305 at section 7. Neither changed the 30-day and 45-day notice periods or the statutory forms, which were already in their current position in the 2021 edition of the statutes.

The 2024 change that most affects a collection file is on the enforcement side of the ledger. For HOAs, HB 1203 moved the date a fine becomes payable from 5 days after notice of the approved fine to at least 30 days after delivery of the committee's written findings, and provided that attorney fees and costs on the fine may not begin to accrue until after that date and after the time for an appeal has expired. A fining ledger that ages fines the way it ages assessments will overstate the balance. The fining and enforcement session history sets out the rewrite in full.

2023 session: SB 154 reached both lien statutes

SB 154, Chapter 2023-203, is remembered for refining milestone inspections and the Structural Integrity Reserve Study. It also amended § 718.116 at section 19 and § 720.3085 at section 20. Those amendments did not disturb the notice sequence or the fee caps.

The 2023 session mattered to collection practice less directly. SB 360, Chapter 2023-22, shortened the construction statute of repose, and HB 837, Chapter 2023-15, cut the negligence limitation period to two years. For an association funding a construction claim through a special assessment, those bills changed the deadline before they changed the budget.

2022 session: one amendment, from the post-Surfside bill

SB 4-D, Chapter 2022-269, is the milestone inspection and Structural Integrity Reserve Study bill. It also amended § 718.116 at section 7. Nothing in the 2022 regular or special sessions changed the notice sequence, the interest rate, the late fee, or the estoppel rules.

What 2022 changed for a collection department was the size of the assessments being collected. The reserve and inspection obligations created that year are why so many delinquency files opened after 2023 involve a special rather than a regular assessment, collected under the same sequence as any other.

2021 session: where the sequence came from, and a chapter-law trap

Two 2021 bills are constantly confused, including in published summaries. SB 56, titled Community Association Assessment Notices, is Chapter 2021-91. It took effect July 1, 2021 and amended §§ 718.111, 718.116, 718.121, 719.104, 719.108, 720.303 and 720.3085. That is the bill that built the notice of late assessment and the invoice and account statement delivery rules.

CS/CS/SB 630, titled Community Associations, is Chapter 2021-99. It also took effect July 1, 2021 and amended 26 sections, including §§ 718.113, 718.121, 718.1265, 718.303, 719.103, 720.305, 720.3075 and 720.316. It was the broad governance revision of that year.

The two chapter numbers are routinely transposed. If a memo credits SB 630 with Chapter 2021-91, it has them backwards, and the error propagates into every history line the memo cites. Check the bill page on flsenate.gov before repeating a chapter number in a demand letter or a board packet.

Estoppel certificates: the 2017 rules, still unamended

Chapter 2017-93 made estoppel certificates uniform across the three chapters, at § 718.116(8) for condominiums, § 719.108(6) for cooperatives and § 720.30851 for homeowners associations. No session from 2021 through 2026 amended the fee caps or the deadline. The rules are these:

• The association must issue the certificate within 10 business days after a written or electronic request from the owner, the owner's designee, the mortgagee or the mortgagee's designee.
• If it is not delivered within those 10 business days, no fee may be charged at all.
• A certificate hand delivered or sent electronically has a 30-day effective period. One sent by regular mail has a 35-day effective period.
• The fee may not exceed $250 where no delinquent amounts are owed on the date of issuance, plus $100 for delivery within 3 business days, plus up to $150 more if delinquent amounts are owed.
• For simultaneous requests on multiple units or parcels owned by the same owner with no past due obligations, the aggregate caps are $750 for 25 or fewer, $1,000 for 26 to 50, $1,500 for 51 to 100 and $2,500 for more than 100.
• Authority to charge the fee must be established by written board resolution or by a written management, bookkeeping or maintenance contract, and the fee is payable on preparation of the certificate.
• If the closing does not occur and a payor who is not the owner asks in writing within 30 days after the intended closing date, with reasonable documentation, the fee must be refunded within 30 days of the request.
• The dollar figures are adjusted every 5 years by the cumulative change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, U.S. City Average, All Items. The Department of Business and Professional Regulation calculates and publishes the adjusted amounts on its website.

The practical point is the first two bullets. The fee is not the association's to keep if the certificate is late, and a management contract that assigns the fee to the manager does not change the deadline the association is held to.

The thresholds no session has moved

A new owner is jointly and severally liable with the previous owner for unpaid assessments that came due up to the time of transfer of title, under § 718.116(1)(a). The exception that swallows most of the association's recovery is the first mortgagee safe harbor in § 718.116(1)(b): a first mortgagee or its successor that acquires title by foreclosure is liable for the lesser of the unit's unpaid common expenses and regular periodic assessments that accrued or came due in the 12 months immediately preceding acquisition of title, or one percent of the original mortgage debt, and only where the mortgagee joined the association as a defendant. Chapter 720 carries a parallel limit in § 720.3085(2). Chapter 719 does not appear to carry one at all, which is a real difference for a cooperative board and worth confirming with counsel before the association writes off a balance.

Suspension thresholds also held still. A condominium may suspend voting rights only where the obligation is both more than $1,000 and more than 90 days delinquent, under § 718.303(5); a cooperative and an HOA need only 90 days, under § 719.303(5) and § 720.305(4). Use-rights suspension runs on 90 days in all three chapters, and none lets the association cut off access to the unit or parcel, utilities or parking.

On payment plans, the honest answer is that the Legislature has never addressed them. No chapter requires an association to offer one, and no chapter regulates the terms. What constrains the drafting is the application-of-payments rule: because each payment is applied to interest, then the late fee, then costs and fees, then the assessment, a plan that promises the owner his payments will retire the assessment first is promising something the statute does not allow unless the association affirmatively waives the other charges. Our discussion of payment plans in a condominium works through the drafting.

What a board should do with this

1. Pull the association's demand letter templates and check the statutory citations against the current subsection numbers, not against the version in the management company's library.
2. Confirm that the 30-day notice goes out before any attorney fee is added to the ledger, and that the 45-day notice goes by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, and by first-class mail.
3. Check the estoppel fee schedule against the board resolution or management contract that authorizes it, and confirm the current inflation-adjusted figures published by the Department before charging above the statutory numbers.
4. Age fines separately from assessments, because for an HOA the fine is not payable until at least 30 days after the written findings.
5. Review the collection policy annually rather than after a dispute. The statutes set the sequence; everything else is the board's to decide in advance and apply to everyone the same way.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes handles assessment collection, lien and foreclosure work for condominium, cooperative and homeowners association boards across Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties, and reviews collection policies and notice templates against the current statute. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Assessment Collection page.