Emergency Board Decisions in a Florida HOA: What Section 720.316 Lets the Board Do

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 · Sub-associations

Section 720.316 gives a homeowners' association board a defined set of extra powers when a state of emergency has been declared for the area. It lets the board meet by phone or video with whatever notice is practicable, close common areas on professional advice, contract for debris removal and mold mitigation, levy special assessments without a member vote, and borrow money. It does not suspend the declaration, and it does not last past the emergency. Both limits matter more than the powers themselves.

When the emergency powers are available

Section 720.316(1) sets three conditions before the board may use any of it. All three must be satisfied.

1. There is damage or injury caused by or anticipated in connection with an emergency as that term is defined in § 252.34(4). The board may act in anticipation of damage, which is why a board can act before landfall rather than after.
2. A state of emergency has been declared under § 252.36 in the area encompassed by the association. Section 252.36 is the Governor's emergency management authority. If no declaration covers your area, § 720.316 is not in effect.
3. The declaration or other recorded governing documents do not specifically prohibit the exercise of these powers. The section opens "unless specifically prohibited by the declaration or other recorded governing documents, and consistent with s. 617.0830."

That third condition is worth a look at your own documents in calm weather. Most declarations say nothing about emergency powers, which leaves § 720.316 fully available. A minority contain language that restricts borrowing or special assessments in terms broad enough to raise a question. Find out before the county is under a warning, not during the board call.

The reference to § 617.0830 also matters. Emergency powers do not relax the standard of conduct. Directors still must act in good faith, with the care an ordinary prudent person in a like position would reasonably believe appropriate under similar circumstances, and in a manner they reasonably believe to be in the association's best interests. Ch. 2026-168 reenacted § 720.316(1) effective July 1, 2026 to pick up its revisions to § 617.0830, so the standard a court applies to a 2026 storm decision is the revised one.

The eleven powers

Section 720.316(1) lists paragraphs (a) through (k). They fall into three groups: keeping the association functioning, protecting the property, and paying for it.

Notice the shape of paragraphs (g) through (i). Each is tied to the common areas and facilities, and each of (g) and (h) is conditioned on professional advice. Section 720.316 does not authorize the association to enter, mitigate inside, or make decisions about an individual parcel. That is a real difference from the condominium statute, where the common elements and the units are physically interlocked.

Emergency assessments and borrowing

Paragraph (1)(j) is drafted to override your documents. It permits the board to levy special assessments without a vote of the owners "notwithstanding a provision to the contrary, and regardless of whether such authority does not specifically appear in the declaration or other recorded governing documents." An HOA whose declaration requires a membership vote for special assessments may levy one anyway while the powers are live.

Three cautions apply.

• The assessment must serve the emergency purpose. Section 720.316(2) limits the whole section to what is reasonably necessary to protect health, safety and welfare, mitigate further damage, injury or contagion, and make emergency repairs. An assessment that funds the deferred clubhouse renovation the board has wanted for three years is not an emergency assessment because a hurricane happened to pass.
• Normal collection rules still apply. Section 720.316 changes how the assessment is levied. It does not change the lien, the notice of intent, the 45-day letters, or the rest of the collection process in § 720.3085.
• Notice remains good practice. The section excuses the ordinary vote, not the board's obligation to act transparently. Where it is practicable to give the § 720.303(2)(c) notice describing the nature of the assessment, give it.

Paragraph (1)(k) is narrower than it looks. The board may borrow and pledge association assets, but the power is expressly tied to funding emergency repairs and carrying out association duties "if operating funds are insufficient." The paragraph then says it does not limit the association's general authority to borrow, subject to restrictions in the recorded governing documents. So a routine post-storm loan that is not an emergency necessity still runs through whatever the declaration requires.

The limits: subsections (2) and (3)

Section 720.316(2) is the sentence that decides most disputes about emergency powers. The authority granted under subsection (1) is limited to that time reasonably necessary to protect the health, safety and welfare of the association and the parcel owners and their family members, tenants, guests, agents or invitees, and to mitigate further damage, injury or contagion and make emergency repairs.

There is no fixed number of days. The clock is functional, and it runs separately for each power. The authority to meet by video with abbreviated notice may be reasonable for weeks after a major storm while the authority to keep a pool closed may expire as soon as the engineer clears it. A board still operating under emergency powers three months after the declaration has expired should expect to be asked which specific health or safety condition still justifies it.

Section 720.316(3) is the express carve-out. Notwithstanding paragraphs (1)(f) through (i), during a state of emergency declared by executive order or proclamation of the Governor under § 252.36, an association may not prohibit parcel owners, tenants, guests, agents or invitees from accessing the common areas and facilities for ingress to and egress from the parcel when access is necessary in connection with the sale, lease or other transfer of title of a parcel, or the habitability of the parcel or the health and safety of the person. The one exception is a governmental order or determination, or a public health directive from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, prohibiting such access. Any access allowed is subject to reasonable restrictions the association adopts.

In plain terms: a gated HOA may not use emergency powers to lock an owner, a tenant, a closing agent or a contractor out of the route to the home. It may impose reasonable conditions such as check-in, hours or escorting, and it should adopt those conditions as a written policy rather than improvising at the gate.

Meetings when normal notice is impossible

Two provisions work together. Section 720.303(2)(c) already excuses the 48-hour posted or 7-day mailed board meeting notice "except in an emergency." Section 720.316(1)(a) goes further and allows board, committee, election and membership meetings to be held in whole or in part by telephone, real-time videoconferencing or similar real-time communication, with notice of the meetings and of board decisions given in as practicable a manner as possible.

The statute names the methods it will accept: publication, radio, United States mail, the Internet, electronic transmission, public service announcements, conspicuous posting on the common area, or any other means the board deems appropriate under the circumstances. Use more than one. A board that posts to a community Facebook page during a power outage and nothing else has chosen the single method least likely to reach anyone.

Two practices make the record defensible. First, the statute requires notice of board decisions as well as of meetings, so publish what was decided, not only that a meeting occurred. Second, keep contemporaneous minutes even when the meeting is three directors on a conference call from three counties. Record who attended, what advice the board relied on, what was decided and why. Our guidance on post-storm communications covers the owner-facing side.

Do not use emergency meeting authority for ordinary business. A board that takes up the landscape contract renewal on a storm-notice call has given any owner who dislikes the outcome an easy argument that the action fell outside § 720.316.

How HOA emergency powers differ from a condominium's

Sections 720.316 and 718.1265 were drafted in parallel and are largely the same. The differences are the places a manager handling both kinds of community gets caught.

The evacuation and interior-mitigation differences follow from the property form. A condominium association maintains a building that contains the units; an HOA usually maintains roads, gates, drainage and common tracts while each owner maintains a separate house on a separate lot. An HOA board that orders evacuation of private homes or sends a mitigation contractor into a private residence is acting outside § 720.316 and should have counsel on the phone first. Our companion guide to condominium emergency powers sets out the Chapter 718 version in detail.

Ratification and the record afterward

Chapter 720 does not require the board to ratify emergency action. The condominium statute does: § 718.112(2)(c)1. permits an item not on the notice to be taken up on an emergency basis by a vote of at least a majority plus one of the board members, and requires that the emergency action be noticed and ratified at the next regular board meeting. Chapter 720 has no equivalent sentence, and the absence is not a license.

Ratify anyway. At the first properly noticed board meeting after conditions allow one:

1. Put "ratification of emergency actions taken under § 720.316" on the agenda as a specific item, so the notice satisfies § 720.303(2)(c).
2. List each action: the meetings held, the closures ordered, the contracts signed, the assessment levied, the money borrowed.
3. For each, state the paragraph of § 720.316(1) relied on and the professional advice or circumstance that supported it.
4. Vote to ratify each action, and record the vote.
5. Identify which emergency measures are ending and on what date, and which continue and why. This is the § 720.316(2) analysis, done on the record.

Then handle the money. An emergency special assessment should be confirmed with a written notice to owners describing the amount, the purpose, the due date and the collection consequences, and the board should say how insurance proceeds will be applied. Our note on post-storm special assessments covers the sequencing.

Finally, use what you learned. Adopt or update the disaster plan that § 720.316(1)(f) assumes exists, designate assistant officers under (1)(c) now rather than in September, confirm that your declaration does not prohibit the emergency powers, and put vendor contacts and the authority to sign in writing. Our hurricane preparation checklist is built for that work in the spring.

For community association managers: see The board needs to meet right away: what notice does an emergency meeting require? in the Manager Resource Center.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes advises homeowners' association boards across Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties before, during and after declared emergencies, on emergency assessments, borrowing, access restrictions and the ratification record. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Disaster Recovery page.