The Division and DBPR: How Recent Sessions Changed State Oversight of Your Association

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 · Cooperatives · Mobile home communities

This page is current through the 2026 regular session, which adjourned on March 13, 2026 without amending the Division's authority over community associations. The governing change is still CS/CS/HB 913 from the 2025 session, Chapter 2025-175, which widened what the Division may investigate after turnover and required every condominium and cooperative association to open an online account with it by October 1, 2025. What follows is organized by session, most recent first.

Which associations the Division actually regulates

The Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes sits inside the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. It regulates condominium associations under § 718.501, cooperative associations under § 719.501, and mobile home parks under Chapter 723. Those three chapters carry investigative authority, subpoena power, and civil penalties.

Homeowners associations are different, and the difference is deliberate. Section 720.302(2) records the Legislature's determination that it is "not in the best interest of homeowners' associations or the individual association members thereof to create or impose a bureau or other agency of state government to regulate the affairs of homeowners' associations." The department's role under Chapter 720 is narrow: it hears election and recall disputes and administers presuit mediation of covenant enforcement disputes under § 720.311. A board that files a complaint with the Division about an HOA records violation will usually be told the Division has no jurisdiction over it.

After turnover, the Division's condominium jurisdiction is not general. Section 718.501(1)(a) limits it to an enumerated list of subjects. Complaints outside that list get closed. Knowing where the line falls is often the first question when an owner threatens to "report the board to the state."

The 2026 session: no change to Division authority, and another failed ombudsman bill

No bill amending Chapters 718, 719, 720 or 723 as a governance matter passed in 2026. The Division's powers are the same today as they were on July 1, 2025.

Two 2026 chapter laws will still show up in the history lines and should not be misread. SB 104, Chapter 2026-14, effective May 12, 2026, was a reviser's bill. It touched § 718.501 among other sections, so the history line at the end of § 718.501 now ends with a 2026 citation even though nothing substantive changed. Separately, CS/CS/HB 797, Chapter 2026-168, rewrote Chapter 617, the Not For Profit Corporation Act, and made conforming amendments to § 718.111 and § 718.3027. That rewrite reaches your association as a corporation, not through the Division.

The community association omnibus, CS/CS/CS/CS/HB 657, passed the House 108 to 2 on March 5, 2026 and died in Senate Rules on March 13, 2026. Among other things it would have created a community association court program. It did not become law, and nothing in it is in effect.

Condominium owners have had an Office of the Condominium Ombudsman since 2004, created by § 718.5011 and located for administrative purposes within the Division. Homeowners associations have no counterpart, and the Legislature has repeatedly declined to create one.

In the 2025 session, HB 137 and its Senate companion SB 120 would have created an ombudsman office for homeowners associations inside the same Division, funded the office, directed the Governor to appoint an ombudsman, and given it election monitoring duties. Both died in committee in 2025. In the 2026 session, SB 906 proposed the same office and died in Senate Regulated Industries on March 13, 2026.

For a board, the practical consequence is unchanged: an owner unhappy with an HOA has the courts, department-administered election and recall arbitration, and presuit mediation. There is no state office that will investigate the association informally.

2025: what HB 913 widened

Chapter 2025-175 expanded the subjects the Division may investigate after turnover. Under § 718.501(1)(a) the Division may now look into complaints about:

• financial and procedural matters, including annual reporting and reserve fund allocation
• elections and voting procedures
• maintenance of official records and owner access to them
• procedural requirements for board and owner meetings
• conflict of interest disclosures
• removal of a director or officer from office
• structural integrity reserve studies and milestone inspections
• insurance and fidelity bonding requirements
• board member education compliance

The last three are the additions that matter most. Before 2025, an owner complaining that the association never completed its reserve study or never certified its directors had no Division route. Now they do, and the Division has said it intends to use the online account data to see which associations have reported a completed study.

The online account, due October 1, 2025

Section 718.501(3) requires that on or before October 1, 2025, all condominium associations create and maintain an online account with the Division and provide the information the Division requests in the electronic format it determines. Section 719.501(3) imposes the same requirement on cooperative associations, with the same date. Both provisions came from HB 913.

The account holds contact information for the association, its board and its manager; building data including the number of stories, the number of units and the age of each building; assessment amounts and purposes and the institutions holding association funds; and structural reserve study information. A copy of a completed study must be supplied to the Division within five business days of a request. Reporting is generally annual, and the Division must give notice before adding a new reporting requirement.

Two traps recur. First, the account is the association's, not the manager's. A management change does not move the login, and an association that cannot access its own account is not excused. Second, there is no Chapter 720 or Chapter 723 counterpart. An HOA that was told by a vendor it needed a Division account was told wrong.

Civil penalties and how a Division case runs

The Division may impose civil penalties against a developer, an association, or an officer or board member. Under § 718.501(1)(e), the maximum is $5,000 per offense, and while penalties may be computed on a daily basis for a continuing violation, the aggregate for a single offense is capped. Section 719.501(1)(d) gives the Division parallel authority over cooperatives with the same $5,000 figure.

A penalty against an individual officer or director is available only after the Division has told the person about the violation and the person has declined to comply within the opportunity period the statute gives. In practice most matters resolve at the warning letter or corrective action stage, and the penalty authority works mainly as pressure toward compliance rather than as the usual outcome. The Division also has subpoena power and may petition the circuit court to enforce a subpoena.

Route any Division correspondence to counsel before the association answers it. A response drafted at the management office and filed without review becomes the association's position in the file, and it is difficult to take back.

Arbitration, mediation, and a 2027 change already on the books

Section 718.1255 defines a "dispute" narrowly and routes covered disputes away from the courthouse first. Disputes over the board's authority to require an owner to take action or to alter the common elements, over failures in elections, notice, meetings or records inspection, and over plans of termination fall inside the definition. Title disputes, warranty interpretation, assessment collection, evictions, breach of fiduciary duty claims and damage claims fall outside it.

Covered disputes go either to nonbinding arbitration before the Division, on a $50 filing fee, or to presuit mediation. The arbitrator issues a decision within 30 days, and a party dissatisfied with it has 30 days to file for a trial de novo. Election and recall disputes are the exception: they are not eligible for mediation and must be arbitrated by the Division or filed in court. Our guide to condominium arbitration and mediation walks through which track a given dispute takes.

SB 154 in 2023, Chapter 2023-203, added a paragraph to § 718.1255(1) that takes effect July 1, 2027. It brings disputes about a failure to obtain a milestone inspection or a structural integrity reserve study, to fund reserves, or to perform recommended maintenance into the definition, and it excludes them from arbitration so that they go to presuit mediation instead. That is a year out, and it is worth calendaring now.

Director education and approved providers

The Division approves the providers who deliver mandatory director education, which is why the requirement sits on this page rather than a purely internal governance page. The three chapters do not say the same thing.

HB 1021 in 2024, Chapter 2024-244, inserted a new subparagraph into § 718.112(2)(d) and pushed director education down from (2)(d)4.b. to (2)(d)5.b. Forms and articles written before 2025 still cite the old number. The rule did not change; the address did. Our page on director certification covers the mechanics.

Because HB 913 added board education compliance to the Division's investigable list, a missing certification is now something an owner can complain about to the state rather than only raise at a meeting.

CAM licensing and the § 468.4335 conflict rules

Manager conflicts of interest are not in Chapter 718. They are in § 468.4335, inside the community association manager licensing chapter, and searching Chapter 718 for them produces nothing. The section was created by HB 1021 in 2024 and has been amended twice since, by Chapter 2025-142 and by Chapter 2025-175.

• (1) Disclosure. A manager or management firm must disclose to the board any activity that may reasonably be construed to be a conflict of interest. A rebuttable presumption of conflict arises when the manager proposes a contract for non-management services, or receives compensation from a vendor doing business with the association.
• (2) Multiple bids. Where a conflict is involved and the bid exceeds $2,500 for a good or service, the association must obtain multiple competing bids from other providers.
• (3) Board approval. The proposed transaction must be disclosed on the meeting agenda with full documentation, and approval requires an affirmative vote of two-thirds of all directors present.
• (4) Consequence. A violation makes the management contract voidable. The association may terminate by written notice and owes only the reasonable value of management services rendered to the date of cancellation, with no termination fee or penalty.
• (5) Relatives. "Relative" reaches the third degree of consanguinity.

Read (2) carefully. The multiple-bid duty is triggered by the conflict, and the statute places it on the association rather than on the manager. That is worth checking against your management agreement, which may assign the task differently than the statute does.

What a board should do with this

1. Confirm the association, not the management company, controls the login to its Division online account, and confirm the data in it is current.
2. Check that the completed structural integrity reserve study, if one is required, has been reported to the Division and can be produced within five business days.
3. Pull the director certification file and confirm each sitting director meets the standard for your chapter, using the current subsection number.
4. Review the management agreement against § 468.4335 and decide, in writing, who obtains bids when a conflict is disclosed.
5. Calendar July 1, 2027 for the change in how milestone, reserve study and reserve funding disputes are routed.

None of this requires a new policy. It requires someone to open the file and check. Boards get into trouble on these provisions by assuming the manager handled it, and managers get into trouble by assuming the board reviewed it.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes represents condominium, cooperative and mobile home community boards across Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties in Division inquiries, complaint responses, arbitration and compliance reviews, and we audit online account data, director certification files and management agreements against the current statute. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Regulatory Compliance page.