Cooperative Dispute Resolution: How One Sentence in § 719.1255 Sends Your Dispute to the Division

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: Cooperatives

Cooperative dispute resolution in Florida is governed by a statute that says almost nothing. Section 719.1255 consists of one sentence directing the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes to provide alternative dispute resolution in accordance with § 718.1255. Everything a cooperative board needs to know about arbitration, presuit mediation, deadlines, fees and trial de novo is therefore in the condominium statute, applied to a cooperative. That borrowing is clean in most places and awkward in a few.

One sentence that imports an entire statute

Section 719.1255 reads, in full: the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes of the Department of Business and Professional Regulation shall provide for alternative dispute resolution in accordance with s. 718.1255. That is the whole section.

Two consequences follow immediately. The first is that a cooperative board reading Chapter 719 for its dispute resolution obligations will find nothing useful and should be reading § 718.1255 instead. The second is that Chapter 719 moves whenever § 718.1255 moves. There is no separate cooperative amendment cycle for ADR. When the Legislature adjusts the condominium program, cooperatives are adjusted with it on the same day, whether or not anyone mentions cooperatives in the bill.

This is worth contrasting with the rest of Chapter 719. Most of the places where the cooperative statute is thinner than the condominium statute are true silences, where a board must look to its own documents. Insurance allocation, reconstruction after a casualty, and leasing restrictions are all examples. Dispute resolution is the opposite: Chapter 718 applies here by express statutory adoption, not by analogy. Section 719.106(1)(n) closes the loop by requiring the bylaws to contain a provision for alternative dispute resolution of internal disputes in accordance with § 719.1255.

What counts as a dispute

Section 718.1255(1) defines dispute as a disagreement between two or more parties that involves the categories below. If your matter is on this list, the presuit requirement applies.

• The authority of the board, under any statute or the governing documents, to require an owner to take or not take an action involving the unit or its appurtenances.
• The authority of the board to alter or add to a common area or element.
• The failure of the governing body, when required by statute or the documents, to properly conduct an election.
• The failure to give adequate notice of meetings or other actions.
• The failure to properly conduct a meeting.
• The failure to allow inspection of books and records.

For a cooperative board, the recurring members of that list are records requests, meeting notice complaints, election challenges, and use restriction disputes where a member objects that the board has no authority to make them do something. Our guide to cooperative elections and our guide to cooperative official records cover the two subjects that produce the most petitions.

What is excluded, and why it matters more for a cooperative

The exclusions are where the practical value sits. Section 718.1255(1) says the term does not include a disagreement that primarily involves: title to any unit or common element; the interpretation or enforcement of any warranty; the levy of a fee or assessment, or the collection of an assessment levied against a party; the eviction or other removal of a tenant from a unit; alleged breaches of fiduciary duty by one or more directors; or claims for damages to a unit based on the association's alleged failure to maintain.

So a cooperative's maintenance fee collection matter is not a dispute, and no presuit step stands between the association and the courthouse. Neither is a fine, since a fine is the levy of a fee. Neither is an eviction. For a board, that is the single most useful sentence in the statute, because collection is the most common reason a cooperative ends up in litigation.

The cooperative wrinkle is the word tenant. In a condominium, the eviction exclusion covers a tenant who leases from an owner, and the owner is never a tenant. In a cooperative, the member is a lessee under the proprietary lease. If the association sues to terminate that lease and recover possession, is that the eviction or other removal of a tenant from a unit, and therefore excluded, or is it an exercise of board authority over the unit, and therefore caught? The statute does not say, and it was not drafted with cooperatives in mind.

There is a second route to the same answer in a nonpayment case: the claim primarily involves the collection of an assessment, which is excluded on its own terms. A termination for a non-monetary default has no such fallback. Our article on terminating a proprietary lease for nonpayment deals with the substance of that remedy. The procedural question of whether it must be arbitrated first is one to settle with counsel before filing, because filing too early gets the case dismissed without prejudice and filing too late is rarely free either.

Arbitration or presuit mediation, and who chooses

Before filing a court action over a dispute other than an election or recall dispute, a party must either petition the Division for nonbinding arbitration or initiate presuit mediation. The party who moves first picks the track. The arbitration petition must be accompanied by a $50 filing fee, which the statute directs to the expenses of the program.

Election and recall disputes are treated separately. They are not eligible for mediation and must be arbitrated by the Division or filed in a court of competent jurisdiction. For a cooperative, that is the rule for a contested annual meeting result and for a recall under § 719.106(1)(f), which has its own tight deadlines: a board served with a written recall agreement must hold a meeting within 5 business days, and if it does not certify the recall it must file for arbitration with the Division or in court within 5 full business days.

The presuit mediation route begins with a statutory offer to participate. It must give the other side advance written notice of the specific nature of the dispute, a demand for relief and a reasonable opportunity to comply, and notice of the party's intent to file an arbitration petition or other legal action if the matter is not resolved. Failure to comply with those requirements requires dismissal of the later proceeding without prejudice. Parties then select a mutually acceptable mediator from the certified list, and if they cannot agree, the arbitrator appoints one.

Attendance is mandatory. An association satisfies that obligation by sending one or more representatives with full authority to negotiate a settlement and to recommend that the board ratify and approve it within 5 days of the conference. Failing to appear without approval exposes a party to sanctions that include striking pleadings, dismissal or default, and an award of costs and attorney fees to the other parties. Send someone who can actually say yes.

The arbitration itself, and what it costs

Once the Division determines that a proper dispute exists, it assigns an arbitrator, who must conduct the hearing within 30 days after being assigned. Either party may ask that the matter be referred to mediation, and if all parties agree the referral is mandatory; the arbitrator may also refer a case on their own.

Fees follow the outcome and they follow it hard. The prevailing party in an arbitration proceeding is awarded the costs of the arbitration and reasonable attorney fees in an amount determined by the arbitrator, and that award includes the costs and fees incurred in the arbitration itself plus those incurred in preparing for and attending any scheduled mediation. For a cooperative board, the budget question is not whether arbitration is cheaper than court. It is whether the association's position is strong enough that the fee award is likely to run the association's way.

Board authority deserves a note here. A settlement reached at mediation is not effective because the association's lawyer or manager agreed to it. It is effective when the board ratifies it, and the statute's own structure contemplates that ratification within 5 days. Put the ratification on a properly noticed board meeting agenda and record it in the minutes.

Trial de novo

The arbitration is nonbinding, which is the point of the design. A party who is unhappy with the decision must file a complaint for trial de novo in the appropriate trial court within 30 days after the arbitration decision. If nobody files within 30 days, the decision becomes final and enforceable.

The cost rule is what makes the choice serious. A party who files for trial de novo and does not obtain a judgment more favorable than the arbitration decision is assessed the other party's arbitration costs, court costs and other reasonable costs, including attorney fees, investigation expenses, and expenses for expert or other testimony incurred after the arbitration hearing. A party who does obtain a more favorable judgment is awarded reasonable court costs and attorney fees.

For a board, that translates into one question after an adverse award: is the association likely to do better than this in front of a judge, and by enough to justify carrying the downside if it does not? That question should be answered in writing, in the minutes, before the 30 days run.

Where lease-based claims fit alongside statutory ones

Almost every serious cooperative dispute has two faces. The member says the board exceeded its authority under the documents, which is squarely a statutory dispute under § 718.1255(1). The association says the member is in default under the proprietary lease, which is a contract claim the ADR statute never contemplated. Both arise from the same facts.

Three practical rules follow. First, the presuit obligation attaches to the dispute, not to the label on the pleading, so a lease claim that primarily involves the board's authority over the unit should be treated as caught. Second, plead the lease claim and the statutory claim in the same proceeding wherever possible; splitting them is how an association ends up arbitrating one half and litigating the other, paying for both. Third, if the statutory claim is excluded, which is usually the case in collections, take the whole matter to court and do not create an ADR step for yourself.

Be realistic about the borrowed machinery, too. The Division's arbitration program was built for condominiums, its rules and its decisions are overwhelmingly condominium decisions, and an arbitrator may see very few cooperative petitions in a year. The statutory text applies to cooperatives by adoption, but the arguments about how a proprietary lease fits into a condominium framework will often be arguments of first impression. Say so in the petition rather than hoping nobody notices.

One change already on the books for 2027

Chapter 2023-203 amended § 718.1255 with a delayed effective date of July 1, 2027. On that date a new paragraph (1)(d) is added to the definition of dispute, covering the board's failure to obtain a milestone inspection under § 553.899, to obtain a structural integrity reserve study, to fund reserves, and to make or provide maintenance recommended by such an inspection or study. Subsection (5) is amended at the same time to provide that those disputes are not subject to nonbinding arbitration and must be submitted to presuit mediation in accordance with § 720.311.

Because § 719.1255 adopts § 718.1255 as it stands, that change reaches cooperatives on the same day without any amendment to Chapter 719. Cooperatives do have milestone inspection obligations under § 553.899, which by its terms covers buildings subject to a residential cooperative under Chapter 719, and they have their own structural integrity reserve study regime under § 719.106(1)(k). Our guide to structural integrity reserve studies for cooperatives covers those obligations.

There is an obvious drafting seam. The new paragraph is written in condominium vocabulary and cross-references the condominium reserve study provision, not § 719.106(1)(k). Whether a cooperative reserve funding dispute after July 1, 2027 will be routed to presuit mediation on that basis is not something the text answers cleanly, and a board planning a reserve fight should not assume either result. Between now and then, a reserve or inspection dispute follows the ordinary rules described above.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes represents cooperative boards in Division arbitration, presuit mediation and court throughout Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties, and advises on which track a dispute belongs in before anything is filed. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Litigation and ADR page.