How Long Must a Florida Condo or HOA Keep Its Records? A Retention Schedule for Boards

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

• Published September 22, 2026
• Updated September 23, 2026
• Reviewed by Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA, September 23, 2026
• Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026
• Applies to: Condominiums · HOAs · Cooperatives

Florida condominium, cooperative and homeowners associations must keep their official records for at least seven years unless the statutes provide otherwise, and the statutes do provide otherwise in several places: the recorded governing documents, plans and permits and (after 2024 amendments) other foundational records must be kept permanently, ballots and other election materials must be kept for one year, bids for one year, and inspection reports and reserve studies for fifteen years. The schedule below organizes the requirements for boards and managers, and explains what to do about the records the statutes did not anticipate: emails and text messages.

The default: seven years

Sections 718.111(12) and 720.303(4) list the records an association must maintain and require them to be kept within the state (electronically or physically) for at least seven years unless a different period applies. Seven years is therefore the default for accounting records, bank statements, ledgers, invoices, contracts after they expire, insurance policies after they lapse, correspondence, and the catch-all category of "all other written records" relating to the operation of the association.

Seven years also matches most audit, tax and statute-of-limitations horizons, which is not a coincidence. An association that discards its 2019 vendor file in 2024 may find in 2025 that the roof installed in 2019 is failing and the contractor is disputing the scope.

Records kept permanently

The governing documents and the physical records of the property have no expiration:

• The recorded declaration and all amendments
• The articles of incorporation and bylaws, and their amendments
• The current rules of the association (superseded rules should be retained for seven years so that enforcement history can be reconstructed)
• Plans, permits, warranties and other items provided by the developer at turnover
• Legislation enacted in 2024 moved additional categories into permanent retention for condominiums and HOAs; boards should confirm with counsel which records (minutes in particular) their community must now keep indefinitely

Permanent retention is easy to satisfy electronically and nearly impossible to satisfy in a filing cabinet that floods every few years. Scan them, store them in the cloud with the website, and keep a second copy.

One-year records: elections and bids

Election materials (ballots, sign-in sheets, voting proxies and all other papers and electronic records relating to voting by owners) must be kept for at least one year from the date of the election, vote or meeting to which they relate. Because a condominium election may be challenged for 60 days after the results are announced and arbitration can take months, one year is a floor, not a target; keep them until any challenge is finally resolved.

Bids for work to be performed or for materials, equipment or services must be maintained for at least one year after receipt. Bids that resulted in a contract should be kept with the contract for seven years after the contract ends.

Fifteen-year records: inspections and reserve studies

Milestone inspection reports, Structural Integrity Reserve Studies and other structural or life-safety inspection reports must be maintained for at least fifteen years after receipt. They are also among the documents that must be posted on the association's website where one is required and provided to purchasers at resale.

Emails, text messages and the manager's inbox

The official records include all written records relating to the operation of the association. Emails and text messages about association business sent to or from the association, its manager or an association-controlled account fall within that definition. Whether messages exchanged on directors' personal accounts and phones are official records is less settled; the Division has drawn distinctions in arbitration decisions, and the prudent assumption is that any message about association business may have to be produced. Three practical consequences follow:

1. Those messages are subject to owner inspection (with privileged and protected content redacted) and to production in litigation.
2. They must be retained for seven years like any other written record, which most directors' personal accounts do not do reliably.
3. Deliberating by email among a quorum of the board can itself violate the open-meeting requirements.

Best practice is an association-controlled email account for each director (or at least a shared board address), a rule that association business is conducted only through those accounts, automatic archiving by the management company or a records vendor, and a written policy that says so. Text messages should be limited to logistics.

Electronic records and websites

Records may be maintained in electronic form so long as they can be converted to written form within a reasonable time, and they may be made available to owners electronically. Associations required to maintain a website or application (condominiums with 25 or more units, HOAs with 100 or more parcels) must post specified records there, including the governing documents, budgets, financial reports, contracts, meeting notices and inspection reports, and must keep the posted documents current. A records-retention policy should therefore address the website as a records location: who posts, who removes, and how superseded versions are archived.

Transitions between management companies

Records are lost most often when management changes. The management agreement should require the outgoing company to deliver all official records, in organized electronic form, within a stated period after termination (Florida's Community Association Management statute imposes a short delivery deadline on licensed managers), and the board should inventory what it received against the statutory list before releasing the final payment.

Litigation holds

When litigation is filed or reasonably anticipated, including a records dispute, a construction defect claim, a covenant enforcement suit or an insurance coverage dispute, the association must suspend routine destruction of records relevant to the matter, including emails and texts, and preserve them until counsel releases the hold. Courts sanction parties who destroy relevant records even under an otherwise valid retention schedule. Counsel should issue a written hold notice to directors, the manager and the records vendor at the first sign of a dispute.

A retention schedule for boards

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes prepares records-retention and electronic-communication policies, manages records transitions between management companies, and defends records disputes for associations throughout Southwest Florida. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Official Records page.