This page is current through the 2026 regular session, and the statute text described here is the 2026 Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026. It sets out what each legislative session since 2021 did to Chapter 720, most recent session first, with the chapter law number and effective date for each item. Chapter 720 changed less often than Chapter 718 over this period, but when it changed, in 2023 and 2024, it changed in ways that reach the board's everyday enforcement and records work.
How to read this page
Each entry is anchored to the session that produced it and to the chapter law number the Governor signed. The bill number, such as HB 1203, is what gets repeated at meetings. The chapter law number, Ch. 2024-221, is what appears in the statute's own history line and what you need if you want to read the act as passed.
At the end of every section on leg.state.fl.us there is a history line listing each chapter law that has amended it. For § 720.303 it currently ends with Ch. 2021-91, Ch. 2021-99, Ch. 2022-269, Ch. 2023-228, Ch. 2024-202, Ch. 2024-221, Ch. 2025-6 and Ch. 2026-14. That single line is a faster answer to "is this current" than any summary, including this one.
This page is organized by session, newest first. A new section is added after each session rather than the older ones being rewritten, so a citation you relied on last year stays findable.
One structural point worth knowing before you read on. Section 720.303 splits records into subsection (4), which lists the official records, and subsection (5), which governs inspection and copying. If a reference you have sends you to the wrong one of those two, it predates the split.
2026 regular session: one new rule, and a corporate rewrite underneath
No community association omnibus passed in 2026. One new client-facing rule did, and it lands squarely on the architectural review committee.
Ch. 2026-63 (CS/CS/HB 803), effective July 1, 2026, added § 720.3035(1)(c). An association, or its architectural, construction improvement or other similar committee, may not require that a building permit have been issued to a parcel owner as a prerequisite for the association's or the committee's review of proposed construction or improvements on the parcel. If your application form or your committee's practice requires a permit up front, that requirement has to come out. Owners frequently cannot obtain a permit until the design is settled, which is the problem the provision addresses. Our guide to architectural review procedures covers how to restructure the intake step.
Ch. 2026-168 (CS/CS/HB 797), effective July 1, 2026, rewrote Chapter 617, the Not For Profit Corporation Act, on the model act pattern, and made a conforming amendment to § 720.3033. Your association is a not-for-profit corporation as well as a homeowners association, so Chapter 617 supplies the corporate rules: board vacancies, member rights, meeting mechanics, director liability and merger requirements. The rewrite also replaced § 617.0832 on director conflict transactions, which is the corporate law backdrop to the disclosure duties in § 720.3033.
Ch. 2026-14 (SB 104), effective May 12, 2026, was the annual reviser's bill and touched § 720.303. It corrects citations and removes obsolete language. Nothing substantive changed.
CS/CS/CS/CS/HB 657, the community association omnibus covering HOA termination and dissolution, governing document requirements, conflict disclosure, a community association court program and presuit mediation changes, passed the House 108 to 2 on March 5, 2026 and died in Senate Rules on March 13, 2026. Bills creating an HOA Ombudsman office in the Department of Business and Professional Regulation also failed.
2025 regular session: nothing substantive for Chapter 720
This is worth stating plainly, because 2025 was a loud year in community association law and a board can easily assume it was swept in. It was not. CS/CS/HB 913, Ch. 2025-175, the act that raised the reserve threshold to $25,000, created the Division online account requirement and authorized voting by video conference, amended Chapters 468, 553, 718, 719 and 721. It did not amend a single section of Chapter 720.
The practical consequences of that are easy to get wrong in the other direction. The HOA financial report deadline is still 120 days after fiscal year end under § 720.303(7), not the 180 days that now applies to condominiums. There is still no 115 percent substitute budget rule in Chapter 720. There is still no HOA counterpart to the condominium e-mail ballot provision. And the HOA website posting threshold is still 100 or more parcels under § 720.303(4)(b), not the 25 units that applies to condominiums.
The only 2025 chapter law in the Chapter 720 history lines is Ch. 2025-6 (SB 42), that year's reviser's bill, which touched § 720.303 and § 720.3033 technically.
2024 regular session: HB 1203, and two smaller acts people forget
CS/CS/HB 1203 became Ch. 2024-221, effective July 1, 2024. It is the homeowners association omnibus and the reason most HOA policies written before 2024 need rewriting. It amended §§ 468.4334, 468.4337, 720.303, 720.3033, 720.3035, 720.3045, 720.305, 720.3065, 720.3075, 720.3085, 720.317 and 720.318.
- Director education under § 720.3033(1). A newly elected or appointed director must submit a certificate of having satisfactorily completed the curriculum of a department-approved education provider within 90 days.
- Website and portal posting for associations with 100 or more parcels under § 720.303(4)(b), with a list of records that must be made available electronically.
- Section 720.305 rewritten. The fining and suspension procedure was restructured, and subsection (7) created new categories an association may not fine or suspend for at all, including garbage containers at the curb within 24 hours either side of collection day and holiday decorations left up, subject to the notice mechanism the subsection describes.
- Criminal and civil penalties attached to certain records offenses, including fraudulent voting activity and destruction of records.
- Section 720.3045 limits on restricting items that are not visible from the parcel's frontage.
Two other 2024 acts reached Chapter 720 and are routinely left out of summaries. Ch. 2024-202 (HB 59), effective July 1, 2024, amended § 720.303 to require associations to provide their rules and covenants to members, with an October 1, 2024 date for the initial distribution, to new members on joining, and again whenever the documents are amended. The obligation may be satisfied by posting on the association's website homepage if members are notified by e-mail or mail. Ch. 2024-205 (CS/HB 293), effective on becoming law May 28, 2024, amended § 720.3035 to require the board to establish hurricane protection specifications, and to prohibit denying an application for hurricane protection that complies with those specifications and the building code. Our page on roofing and exterior modifications works through how that interacts with the rest of the architectural standard.
Ch. 2024-2, that year's reviser's bill, also appears in the § 720.305 history line. It is technical.
2023 regular session: HB 919 changed records, fines and director conduct
CS/CS/HB 919 became Ch. 2023-228, effective October 1, 2023. It amended § 720.303, § 720.3033, § 720.305 and § 720.3065, and it is the first of the two acts that produced the Chapter 720 a board operates under today.
- Revised the official records provisions and the rules on inspection and copying.
- Revised fines and suspensions, and the attorney fee and cost provisions attached to enforcement.
- Revised removal and reinstatement of officers and directors.
- Prohibited commingling of association funds with other funds and required accounting disclosures.
- Created criminal and civil penalties for fraudulent activity by directors, officers and managers.
CS/CS/SB 154, Ch. 2023-203, effective June 9, 2023, was primarily a condominium and cooperative act, but it amended § 720.3085, the HOA assessment and lien section. If your collection policy dates from 2022 or earlier, that is one more reason to re-read it. See our guide on HOA official records requirements and our note on fines, hearings and suspensions for the current procedure.
2022: the Surfside legislation mostly passed HOAs by
SB 4-D was passed in the 2022 Special Session D in May 2022 and became Ch. 2022-269, effective May 26, 2022. It created the milestone inspection requirement at § 553.899 and the structural integrity reserve study at § 718.112(2)(g), and it restricted reserve waivers for condominiums and cooperatives.
It amended § 720.303, but that amendment was a conforming cross-reference rather than a new duty. There is no HOA milestone inspection requirement and no HOA structural integrity reserve study. A homeowners association that operates a building three habitable stories or more in height should still ask counsel whether § 553.899 reaches it on its own terms, because that section is written to buildings rather than to association types. For most platted-lot communities in Southwest Florida the answer is no.
The 2022 regular session produced no Chapter 720 amendment that survives in the current history lines.
2021 regular session: two acts reached Chapter 720
| Act | Chapter law | Effective | Chapter 720 reach |
|---|---|---|---|
| CS/CS/SB 630 | Ch. 2021-99 | July 1, 2021 | Broad community association revision; amended § 720.303 among provisions across Chapters 718, 719 and 720 |
| CS/CS/SB 56 | Ch. 2021-91 | July 1, 2021 | Assessment and collection notices; amended § 720.303 and § 720.3085, including the notice sequence before a lien |
SB 56 is the source of the delinquency notice sequence an HOA uses before recording a claim of lien. If your management company's template has not been reviewed since 2021, that is the place to start.
Where Chapter 720 still differs from Chapter 718
A large share of the errors we see come from applying a condominium rule to a homeowners association because a summary treated the two as one. These are the divergences that survived the 2021 to 2026 period.
| Condominium (Ch. 718) | HOA (Ch. 720) | |
|---|---|---|
| Website posting | 25 or more units | 100 or more parcels |
| Financial report delivery | 180 days after fiscal year end | 120 days after fiscal year end |
| Records response time | 10 working days | 10 business days |
| Rebuttable presumption on failure to respond | Any written request | Certified mail, return receipt requested |
| Copy fee caps in the statute | None stated | 25 cents a page, $20 an hour for personnel time over half an hour, § 720.303(5)(g) |
| Competitive bidding threshold | 5 percent of the total annual budget including reserves | 10 percent, § 720.3055(1) |
| Fine caps overridable by the documents | No | Yes |
| A fine may become a lien | Never | Only a fine of $1,000 or more |
| Substitute budget at 115 percent | Board duty | No such rule |
| Emergency agenda and ratification mechanism | Majority plus one | No equivalent in Chapter 720 |
Emergency powers illustrate the point. Section 720.316(1) runs from paragraph (a) to paragraph (k), and it lacks the evacuation and contract-on-behalf powers that § 718.1265 gives condominium boards. Special assessment without an owner vote is § 720.316(1)(j) and borrowing is (1)(k), where the condominium counterparts sit one and two letters further along. Our side by side comparison of HOAs and condominium associations goes through the rest, and the condominium legislative page tracks the same sessions for Chapter 718.
What a board should do with this page
A practical annual review, timed for late summer after the session's acts have taken effect:
- Pull the architectural application form and the committee's written procedure, and remove any requirement that an owner produce a building permit before the committee will review the application.
- Check the fining and suspension procedure against the current § 720.305, including the categories in subsection (7) that may not be fined at all.
- Confirm the rules and covenants have been provided to every member, that new members receive them on joining, and that amendments are distributed.
- If the association has 100 or more parcels, check the posting list against § 720.303(4)(b) and confirm every required record is actually on the site.
- Confirm each director elected in the last year filed the education certificate within 90 days, and that the association holds the certificates in its records.
- Record in the minutes what was reviewed and what changed. That record matters later if the decision is questioned.
Where the answer affects an owner's rights, a fine already levied, or money committed, the last step is a call to counsel rather than a decision at the table. Our overview of how Chapter 720 is organized is a useful companion when you are trying to locate the provision in the first place.
Frequently Asked Questions About Florida HOA Legislation
What actually changed for HOAs in 2026?
One rule of operational consequence. Section 720.3035(1)(c), added by Ch. 2026-63 and effective July 1, 2026, prohibits the association or its architectural or construction improvement committee from requiring that a building permit have been issued to the owner as a prerequisite for reviewing a proposed improvement. Separately, Ch. 2026-168 rewrote Chapter 617, which supplies your association's corporate rules.
Did HB 913 in 2025 apply to our HOA?
No. Ch. 2025-175 amended Chapters 468, 553, 718, 719 and 721. It did not amend Chapter 720. The $25,000 reserve threshold, the 180-day financial report window, the Division online account and the e-mail ballot provisions are condominium and, in part, cooperative rules. Applying them to an HOA produces the wrong answer in both directions.
Is our HOA financial report due in 120 days or 180 days?
120 days after the end of the fiscal year, under § 720.303(7). The extension to 180 days was a 2025 condominium change at § 718.111(13) and does not reach Chapter 720. Treating the two as the same makes every HOA report late by up to two months.
Can we still fine an owner for leaving garbage cans at the curb?
Not within the window the statute protects. Section 720.305(7), as rewritten in 2024, bars a fine or suspension for leaving garbage containers at the curb within 24 hours before or after the collection day. The same subsection limits fines for holiday decorations, subject to the written notice mechanism it describes. Review your violation schedule against the current text.
Was 2023 a quiet year for HOA law?
No. CS/CS/HB 919, Ch. 2023-228, effective October 1, 2023, revised official records, fines and suspensions, attorney fee provisions, liens, and removal and reinstatement of officers and directors, prohibited commingling of funds and created criminal and civil penalties for fraudulent conduct. It amended §§ 720.303, 720.3033, 720.305 and 720.3065.
How do we tell whether a Chapter 720 section is current?
Read the history line printed at the end of the section on leg.state.fl.us. It lists every chapter law that has amended it. If you see a chapter number from the last two years, assume something you remember about the provision has changed, then pull the act itself from flsenate.gov.
Contact Hamilton Mikes
Hamilton Mikes reviews homeowners association governing documents, architectural procedures, fining schedules and records policies against the current statute, and advises Southwest Florida boards on what a new session actually requires. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Regulatory Compliance page.
Statutes and authorities referenced
- § 720.303(4), (5), Fla. Stat. (official records; inspection and copying; copy fee caps at (5)(g))
- § 720.303(4)(b), Fla. Stat. (website posting for associations with 100 or more parcels)
- § 720.303(7), Fla. Stat. (annual financial report; 120 days)
- § 720.3033, Fla. Stat. (officers and directors; director education and conflict disclosure)
- § 720.3035, Fla. Stat. (architectural control; hurricane protection specifications at (1); permit prerequisite prohibited at (1)(c))
- § 720.3045, Fla. Stat. (items not visible from the parcel frontage)
- § 720.305, Fla. Stat. (obligations of members; fines and suspension of use rights; limits at (7))
- § 720.3055(1), Fla. Stat. (competitive bidding; 10 percent threshold)
- § 720.3065, Fla. Stat. (association funds and accounting)
- § 720.3085, Fla. Stat. (payment for assessments; lien claims)
- § 720.316(1), Fla. Stat. (emergency powers; special assessment at (1)(j), borrowing at (1)(k))
- Chapter 617, Fla. Stat. (Not For Profit Corporation Act, rewritten by Ch. 2026-168; director conflict transactions at § 617.0832)
- § 553.899, Fla. Stat. (milestone inspections; buildings three habitable stories or more)
- Session laws: Ch. 2021-91 (CS/CS/SB 56); Ch. 2021-99 (CS/CS/SB 630); Ch. 2022-269 (SB 4-D); Ch. 2023-203 (CS/CS/SB 154); Ch. 2023-228 (CS/CS/HB 919); Ch. 2024-2; Ch. 2024-202 (HB 59); Ch. 2024-205 (CS/HB 293); Ch. 2024-221 (CS/CS/HB 1203); Ch. 2025-6 (SB 42); Ch. 2026-14 (SB 104); Ch. 2026-63 (CS/CS/HB 803); Ch. 2026-168 (CS/CS/HB 797)