Adopting and Amending Rules: What a Florida Condominium Board May Do Without an Owner Vote

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

• Published September 25, 2026
• Reviewed by Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA, September 26, 2026
• Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026
• Applies to: Condominiums

Your board can make rules. It cannot make all rules. Chapter 718 gives the association a narrow express power to adopt reasonable rules about the use of the common elements, and everything else depends on what your declaration and bylaws delegate. Florida courts then apply a reasonableness test to board-adopted rules that they do not apply to restrictions written into the recorded declaration. Knowing which of those two instruments you need, before the board votes, is most of the work.

Where the power to make rules comes from

There is no section of Chapter 718 headed "board rulemaking." The closest the statute comes to a general grant is § 718.123(1), which provides that the entity responsible for the operation of the common elements, common areas and recreational facilities may adopt reasonable rules and regulations pertaining to their use. Note what that covers and what it does not. It covers the common elements and the recreational facilities. It does not reach inside the unit.

The same subsection contains a limit worth knowing before an election season. The association may not unreasonably restrict a unit owner's right to peaceably assemble, or the right to invite public officers or candidates for public office to appear and speak in the common elements, common areas and recreational facilities. An owner who is prevented from exercising those rights may sue in county court, and the court is directed to enjoin enforcement of any document provision or rule that deprives the owner of them. § 718.123(2).

Everything beyond common element use comes from your own documents. The declaration may reserve rulemaking to the board on identified subjects, the bylaws may set the procedure, and either may require owner ratification. The order of authority is fixed: statute, then declaration, then articles of incorporation, then bylaws, then board rules. A rule at the bottom of that stack yields to everything above it. Our guide to reading your governing documents walks through locating the delegation.

One drafting note that has practical consequences. Section 718.303(1) says each unit owner, tenant, other invitee and the association is governed by and must comply with the chapter, the declaration, the documents creating the association, and the association bylaws. It does not list "the rules" in that sentence. Association rules are still enforceable, but they are enforceable because the declaration or bylaws authorize them and bind owners to them. A rule that floats free of any documentary authority is the one that fails.

The two standards: Norman, Basso and Beachwood Villas

Three Fourth District decisions supply the framework Florida courts and the Division still use. They were never binding on courts here. Southwest Florida has been in the Sixth District Court of Appeal since January 1, 2023, not the Second, and the Sixth District has held that it is not bound by the decisions of any other district court, including the Second. CED Capital Holdings 2000 EB, LLC v. CTCW-Berkshire Club, LLC, 363 So. 3d 192 (Fla. 6th DCA 2023). That does not erase Second District law. A circuit judge in Lee, Collier or Charlotte is still bound by a Second District decision on a question the Sixth District has not answered. Pardo v. State, 596 So. 2d 665 (Fla. 1992). What changed is its standing on appeal. It is out-of-district authority now, and open to challenge in a way it was not before 2023. The Sixth District has not disturbed the framework set out here. But a position resting on nothing more than an older Second District decision is more contestable than it was in 2022, and that cuts for a board as often as against it.

• Hidden Harbour Estates, Inc. v. Norman, 309 So. 2d 180 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975), holds that the test for a rule adopted by the board is reasonableness. The court put it plainly: if a rule is reasonable the association can adopt it; if not, it cannot. The association does not have to prove the conduct it is regulating amounts to a nuisance.
• Hidden Harbour Estates, Inc. v. Basso, 393 So. 2d 637 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981), draws the line that matters most. Restrictions in the recorded declaration carry a very strong presumption of validity and will be upheld unless they are wholly arbitrary in application, violate public policy, or abrogate a fundamental constitutional right. Rules promulgated by the board get no such presumption; they must be reasonably related to the promotion of the health, happiness and peace of mind of the unit owners.
• Beachwood Villas Condominium v. Poor, 448 So. 2d 1143 (Fla. 4th DCA 1984), supplies the scope-of-authority test, and states it in a single sentence: "provided that a board-enacted rule does not contravene either an express provision of the declaration or a right reasonably inferable therefrom, it will be found valid, within the scope of the board's authority." Non-contravention is the scope test itself, so that is one question rather than two. Beachwood decided nothing about reasonableness. The court said the reasonableness of the rules before it "was not questioned below and, therefore, we are concerned only with the scope of the board's authority." A rule that clears Beachwood still has to clear Norman and Basso.

Put together, a board rule has to clear two questions. Is it within the scope of the board's authority, which means starting from the grant in the documents and § 718.123 and then asking, as Beachwood puts it, whether the rule contravenes an express provision of the declaration or a right reasonably inferable from it? Is the rule reasonable, meaning rationally related to a legitimate objective of the association rather than to the preference of whoever raised it?

The second question is where boards lose. Reasonableness is decided case by case on the record the board made at the time. A board that adopts a rule after a documented problem, with a stated objective and a rule tailored to that objective, is in a far better position than a board that adopts the same rule with minutes reading "motion carried." Write the reason into the resolution.

Rule or declaration amendment? The dividing line

The single most useful distinction: a rule regulates how an owner uses what the owner already has. A restriction that takes away or redefines a property right belongs in the declaration.

If the declaration is silent on a subject, the board has more room, but silence is not a blank check: the Beachwood Villas test asks about rights reasonably inferable from the declaration, not only express ones. If the declaration addresses the subject, a board rule may fill in procedure and detail. It may not reverse the substantive rule the declaration sets.

Amending the declaration takes the method the declaration provides. If the declaration fails to provide a method of amendment, it may be amended as to most matters by approval of the owners of not less than two-thirds of the units. § 718.110(1)(a). Amendments that materially change the configuration or size of a unit, or the appurtenances to it, or an owner's share of common expenses or common surplus, require the consent of the affected owner and that owner's lienholders and, in a residential condominium, approval of the other owners as the statute directs. § 718.110(4). Our guides to leasing restrictions and pet and animal restrictions cover the two subjects where boards most often reach for a rule when they need an amendment.

The 14-day notice for rules regarding unit use

Most board meetings require adequate notice posted conspicuously on the condominium property at least 48 continuous hours before the meeting, specifically identifying all agenda items. § 718.112(2)(c)1. Rules about the common elements are ordinarily adopted on that notice.

Rules regarding unit use are different. Written notice of a meeting at which an amendment to rules regarding unit use will be considered must be mailed, delivered or electronically transmitted to the unit owners and posted conspicuously on the condominium property at least 14 days before the meeting. Evidence of compliance must be made by an affidavit executed by the person providing the notice and filed with the official records. § 718.112(2)(c)1. That is the same 14-day requirement that applies to a nonemergency special assessment, and it comes from the same sentence of the statute.

"Rules regarding unit use" is not defined in the statute, and the boundary is not always obvious. A rule on short-term guest occupancy plainly regards unit use. A rule on where contractors may park while working in a unit is harder to classify. The Division has not drawn a bright line. Where a board is unsure, the answer is to give the 14-day notice anyway. The cost is two weeks and a mailing. The cost of getting it wrong is an unenforceable rule and, in a contested case, prevailing-party attorney fees against the association under § 718.303(1).

Rules and the material alteration line

A separate limit applies whenever a rule would change the common elements rather than regulate their use. There may be no material alteration or substantial addition to the common elements, or to real property that is association property, except in the manner provided in the declaration. If the declaration does not specify a procedure for approving material alterations or substantial additions, 75 percent of the total voting interests must approve before the work is commenced. § 718.113(2)(a).

Boards run into this when a use rule becomes a physical change. Closing the second pool gate and rerouting traffic is a rule. Removing the gate is probably an alteration. Prohibiting grills on balconies is a rule. Installing a common grill station is an alteration. A rule cannot authorize work that the declaration or the statute says requires an owner vote, and a board that adopts one is exposed on both fronts. Our guide to material alterations works through where necessary maintenance ends and alteration begins.

Publishing the rule, and keeping it findable

A copy of the current rules of the association is an official record the association must maintain. § 718.111(12)(a)5. "Current" is the operative word. A rules book that omits three resolutions adopted since it was printed is not the current rules, and the association will be producing both documents in discovery.

Associations operating condominiums with 25 or more units, none of which are timeshare units, must post the required documents on a website or make them available through a mobile application, and the rules of the association are on the list. Documents must be posted within 30 days after the association receives or creates them. § 718.111(12)(g).

Beyond the statutory minimum, three habits prevent most enforcement disputes. Keep one consolidated rules document with an adoption date next to each rule. Send the adopted rule to every owner and every tenant of record, not only to those who attended the meeting. And date-stamp the version posted online so an owner cannot credibly claim the rule appeared after the violation.

Why improperly adopted rules fail when you try to enforce them

Enforcement is where adoption defects surface, and by then the association has usually spent money. The association may levy reasonable fines for failure to comply with the declaration, the association bylaws or reasonable rules, capped at $100 per violation and $1,000 in the aggregate, and a fine may not become a lien. Before a fine or a suspension may be imposed, the board must give at least 14 days' written notice and an opportunity for a hearing before a committee of at least three members who are not officers, directors or employees, or their relatives, and the committee must approve the fine by majority vote. § 718.303(3). An owner defending that hearing will attack the rule before attacking the facts.

The defenses that work are predictable:

1. The rule was never properly adopted. No 14-day notice for a unit-use rule, no quorum, no vote recorded in minutes, or a rule that appears only in a newsletter.
2. The board lacked authority. The subject was outside § 718.123(1) and outside any delegation in the declaration or bylaws, or the rule contravenes an express provision of the declaration.
3. The rule is unreasonable. No stated objective, or a rule far broader than the problem it addresses.
4. Selective enforcement. The rule was enforced against this owner and not against others in the same position. This defense is fact-driven and it is the reason a written, consistently applied enforcement policy matters.
5. The rule was never published. The owner had no notice of the rule before the conduct occurred.

Disputes over the use of a unit or the common elements, and over the association's failure to properly conduct meetings or elections or to allow record inspection, generally must go through Division nonbinding arbitration or presuit mediation before a lawsuit. § 718.1255(1), (4). Assessment collection and a handful of other categories are excluded. Either way, the prevailing party in an enforcement action is entitled to reasonable attorney fees under § 718.303(1), which is why a $100 fine on a defective rule is never really a $100 problem. Our guides to fines, hearings and suspensions and to arbitration and mediation cover what happens after the rule is challenged.

The fix is cheap if done early. Before the first enforcement letter goes out on a new rule, confirm three things: the board had authority for the subject, the meeting notice matched the type of rule, and every owner received the rule in writing. If any one of those is missing, re-adopt the rule correctly. Re-adoption costs a meeting. Losing the first hearing costs the rule.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes drafts and reviews condominium rules for boards throughout Southwest Florida, and reconstructs rule books that have accumulated 30 years of resolutions nobody can locate. We would rather look at the rule before the first violation letter than after the hearing. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Covenant Enforcement page.