Guest Access to HOA Amenities: Who Is a Guest, What You Can Charge, and How to Enforce It

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: HOAs · Master associations · Country clubs

Section 720.304(1) of the Florida Statutes says the common areas and recreational facilities serving a homeowners' association are available to parcel owners and their invited guests. That one sentence is the starting point for every guest question your board will face. What it does not do is define a guest, cap how many a member may bring, or say whether you can charge for them. Those answers come from your declaration, your bylaws, and the rules the board adopts under them.

Where the right to bring a guest comes from

Section 720.304(1) provides that "All common areas and recreational facilities serving any homeowners' association shall be available to parcel owners in the homeowners' association served thereby and their invited guests for the use intended for such common areas and recreational facilities." The same subsection lets the operating entity "adopt reasonable rules and regulations pertaining to the use of such common areas and recreational facilities."

Two things follow. Invited guests have a statutory place at your pool, so a rule saying members only, no guests, denies the access the statute describes rather than regulating it. Everything short of a ban is a question of reasonableness, judged against the purpose of the facility and the burden the guest traffic creates.

The source of the restriction matters too. Florida courts treat restrictions in a recorded declaration as carrying a strong presumption of validity, while rules the board adopts on its own must be reasonable and within the authority the documents grant. The more a guest restriction costs an owner, the more you want it in the declaration rather than the rules.

Guest versus occupant

Chapter 720 uses guest, occupant and invitee without defining any of them. Section 720.305(1) makes each member "and the member's tenants, guests, and invitees" subject to the chapter, the documents and the rules, and section 720.305(1)(d) permits an action against "any tenants, guests, or invitees occupying a parcel or using the common areas."

The line matters because occupancy triggers screening or approval where the documents require it, counts against occupancy limits, and may bring leasing restrictions into play. The person who stays four months while the owner is in Ohio is not a guest in any useful sense.

If your documents do not draw the line, draw it by rule, with an objective test: a guest is present at an owner's invitation for fewer than a stated number of consecutive nights, commonly 14 or 30, and anyone staying longer in the owner's absence is an occupant subject to the approval provisions. A cumulative annual cap closes the loop on the guest who leaves for a weekend and returns.

Write the test so it turns on the length and nature of the stay. A definition that counts a family with three children as more guests than a couple with none is a familial status problem waiting to happen. Our guide to the scope of HOA board authority covers where a rulemaking power comes from.

Guest fees and whether your documents authorize them

Boards assume that because the amenity costs money to run, the association may charge for guest use. That is backwards. The power to charge must exist in the governing documents before the board sets a number.

Section 720.301(1) defines an "assessment or amenity fee" as a sum payable to the association or to recreational facilities serving the parcels "as authorized in the governing documents," which if unpaid can result in a lien. Chapter 720 has no general user-fee provision, and section 720.308 governs how common expenses are shared, not what you may charge for using a facility.

So find the clause authorizing charges for recreational facility use and confirm whether it lets the board set the amount. If there is no such clause, the association needs an amendment. Then apply the fee consistently, because a fee waived for directors is the cleanest selective enforcement case an owner will ever have.

Ask your accountant about sales tax before the first invoice. Section 212.02(1) defines taxable "admissions" to include "all dues and fees paid to private clubs and membership clubs providing recreational or physical fitness facilities," naming golf, tennis, swimming and fitness facilities among others.

Passes, registration and the records they create

Registration is the least intrusive control available and usually the most useful. It tells you who was on the property, when, and at whose invitation. It also creates records, and records in Florida come with rules.

Section 720.303(5)(g)3. provides that "Information an association obtains in a gated community in connection with guests' visits to parcel owners or community residents" is not accessible to members. Section 720.303(5)(g)6. separately withholds social security numbers, driver license numbers, e-mail addresses, telephone numbers, emergency contact information and other personal identifying information, excluding a person's name, parcel designation, mailing address and property address. Most guest-pass systems collect exactly that.

So collect the minimum: name, sponsoring parcel, date. Keep guest records separate from the general records so a response does not require redacting line by line. Adopt a written retention period, remembering that an inspection exemption is not a destruction rule and a litigation hold overrides the schedule.

Limiting the number of guests

Numerical limits are normal and generally defensible. What makes one defensible is that it is tied to something other than the board's irritation.

• Capacity. A pool has a bather load fixed by the Department of Health under the public pool rules, and a limit that keeps the deck within it is not the board's invention.
• Supervision. Requiring that guests be accompanied by a resident is a rule about who answers for behavior, not about who may come.
• Season. In Lee and Collier counties the burden in February bears no relation to August.
• Scarce resources. Reservation priority for residents on courts and in classes is a use rule, not an access ban.

What draws scrutiny is a limit that is really about something else. A two-guest cap adopted the month after one owner started hosting large gatherings will be read for what it is.

Whatever you adopt, enforce it the same way every time. Selective enforcement is an affirmative defense in Florida, and a rule enforced against three owners and ignored for thirty is the easiest version of it to prove.

Does a tenant displace the owner's use rights?

Section 720.304(1) gives the right of access to "parcel owners" and their invited guests. It says nothing about tenants. The answer is in your declaration.

Most Florida declarations handle it the same way: when a parcel is leased, the tenant succeeds to the owner's right to use the common areas for the term, and the owner's own rights are suspended. The rationale is capacity. If both the absent owner and the tenant may use the pool, a 400-home community has sold 500 memberships.

Check three things. Does the declaration actually contain that suspension language? Does it reach short-term rentals? Does it address guests of the tenant? If the documents are silent, deciding by board rule is risky where the effect is to strip an owner of an existing use right; the durable fix is an amendment approved under section 720.306(1)(a) and recorded under section 720.306(1)(b).

Two statutory points confirm that a tenant is not an owner. Section 720.3085(8) provides that a tenant paying rent to the association under a demand does not acquire voting rights or the right to examine records. And section 720.305(2)(a) lets the association suspend the use rights of "a member, or a member's tenant, guest, or invitee."

Caregivers and health aides are an accommodation question

This is the most common way a guest policy becomes a fair housing file. A resident with a disability has an aide who comes daily. The manager applies the guest rule: register, count against the cap, charge the fee. The family writes a letter, and the association is defending a claim over a $10 charge.

Section 760.23(9)(b) provides that discrimination includes "A refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford such person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling." The federal Fair Housing Act says the same at 42 U.S.C. section 3604(f)(3)(B). A rule is exactly the kind of thing that must yield.

1. Route the request to the board or manager in writing and log the date. Do not route it to the fining committee.
2. If neither the disability nor its connection to the request is obvious, the association may request information verifying both, but not a diagnosis or medical records.
3. Respond in writing and promptly. An unexplained delay is treated in practice as a denial.
4. If the request is unworkable as made, propose an alternative.
5. Keep the file segregated; medical records of residents are withheld from inspection under section 720.303(5)(g)5.

The accommodations boards are actually asked for are modest: waive the guest fee for the aide, do not count the aide against the limit, allow the aide into the fitness room outside guest hours. Our guide to enforcement and fair housing applies the same analysis to assistance animals.

Unaccompanied minors

Familial status is protected under section 760.23 and the federal Fair Housing Act, so a rule that treats children differently starts at a disadvantage. That does not make every age-based rule unlawful. It means the board needs a safety reason it can state, and the narrowest rule that serves it.

Rules that hold up share a pattern. A requirement that anyone under a stated age be accompanied by a person 18 or older in the pool area is tied to drowning risk and bars no one from anything. A minimum age for weight machines tied to the manufacturer's guidance rests on something outside the board. Rules that do not hold up: a blanket ban on children in the fitness room, or adult swim hours.

If your community operates as housing for older persons, the exemption is not self-executing. Section 760.29(4)(b)3. requires that at least 80 percent of occupied units be occupied by at least one person 55 or older, that the community publish and adhere to policies demonstrating the required intent, and that it comply with HUD's rules in 24 C.F.R. part 100 for verification of occupancy.

One drafting note: "accompanied by a parent or a responsible person 18 or older" is enforceable, and "children must be supervised" is not.

Enforce against the member, not the guest

When a guest breaks a rule, the instinct is to deal with the guest. Resist it. Section 720.305(1) does permit an action against "any tenants, guests, or invitees occupying a parcel or using the common areas," with fees to the prevailing party, but the guest leaves on Sunday and owns nothing you can lien. The owner who issued the invitation is the party with a parcel.

The routine tools are fines and suspension, and both run through section 720.305(2):

1. A fine may not exceed $100 per violation, and may be levied per day for a continuing violation up to $1,000 in the aggregate unless the documents provide otherwise. Under $1,000 it may not become a lien.
2. At least 14 days' written notice describing the violation, the cure and the hearing details.
3. A hearing before a committee of at least three members appointed by the board who are not officers, directors or employees, or a close relative of one.
4. The committee must approve by majority vote, and nothing may be imposed if the violation is cured before the hearing.
5. Written notice of the decision, with the fine payable no sooner than 30 days after delivery.

Suspension under section 720.305(2)(a) reaches the member's tenant, guest or invitee, but it stops at the road: the association may not prohibit vehicular and pedestrian ingress to and egress from the parcel, including the right to park. Section 720.305(3) applies the same limit to delinquency suspensions. Our guide to fines, hearings and suspensions covers the procedure.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes drafts and reviews amenity and guest policies for homeowners' associations, master associations and club communities throughout Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties, and advises boards on accommodation requests and enforcement before they become complaints. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Covenant Enforcement page.