HOA Board Authority in Florida: Where the Board's Power Comes From and Where It Stops

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

A homeowners' association board is not a small legislature. It is the governing body of a Florida nonprofit corporation whose authority over privately owned land comes from a recorded declaration of covenants. Chapter 720 adds duties and sets limits, but it does not hand the board general power to regulate. When a board asks whether it can do something, the first question is not what the statute permits. It is what the declaration actually says.

Three sources of authority, in order

Every power a board exercises traces to one of three places, and knowing which one you are standing on decides most disputes.

1. The recorded declaration of covenants. This is the source of all authority over the parcels themselves: use restrictions, architectural control, maintenance obligations, assessment authority, and the lien that backs it. The declaration is a contract running with the land, and owners bought subject to it.
2. Chapter 720 and Chapter 617. Section 720.302(5) confirms that an HOA is governed by the Not For Profit Corporation Act and by Chapter 720. Chapter 617 supplies corporate mechanics: directors, officers, meetings, the standards of conduct in §§ 617.0830 and 617.0832. Chapter 720 supplies association-specific duties and procedures.
3. The articles and bylaws. These organize the corporation and can add procedure, but they cannot grant the association power over a parcel that the declaration withheld.

Section 720.303(1) sits at the top of the association's operating powers. It requires the association to be a Florida corporation, subjects officers and directors to § 617.0830 and a fiduciary relationship to the members, and authorizes the association after turnover to institute, maintain, settle or appeal actions on behalf of all members concerning matters of common interest. It is also where the first hard limit appears: before commencing litigation in the association's name involving amounts in controversy over $100,000, the association must obtain affirmative approval of a majority of the voting interests at a meeting.

That same subsection contains a trap for small communities. An association of 15 or fewer parcel owners may enforce only the requirements of deed restrictions established before each parcel was purchased. A very small HOA that adopted new restrictions later may not be able to enforce them at all.

Authority granted or reasonably inferred

Florida does not require that every power be spelled out word for word. A board may act on authority reasonably inferred from the declaration. But "reasonably inferred" is narrower than boards want it to be, and § 720.3035(1) says so directly in the architectural context: an association or its committee may review and approve plans only to the extent the authority to do so is specifically stated or reasonably inferred as to location, size, type or appearance in the declaration or other published guidelines and standards.

Three consequences follow. First, if the declaration grants review over "exterior structures" and the committee starts regulating paint colors, the committee needs to point to published guidelines that cover color. Second, a standard that lives only in the reviewers' heads is not a published standard. Third, § 720.3035(5) provides that the association may not enforce a policy that is inconsistent with the rights and privileges in the declaration, whether or not the policy is uniformly applied. Consistency is not a defense to acting outside the grant.

Section 720.3035(1)(a) requires the association to reasonably and equitably apply and enforce its standards among all parcel owners. That is the selective enforcement problem stated as a statutory duty rather than as a defense an owner raises. A board that has waived a restriction for years should assume it is enforcing on thin ice and should get advice before picking a test case.

The limits on architectural authority

Section 720.3035 is the clearest list of things an HOA cannot do, and it has been amended three times in three years. The board should read the whole section rather than relying on a form.

• § 720.3035(1)(b) — the association may not enforce covenants that restrict interior elements not visible from outside, or require approval of a mechanical or similar system that is substantially similar to one already approved.
• § 720.3035(1)(c) — new in 2026. Neither the association nor any architectural, construction improvement or similar committee may require that a governmental authority have issued a building permit to the owner as a prerequisite for the association's review. Applications that say "submit permit with application" are now unlawful as written.
• § 720.3035(2) — where the declaration provides options for materials, size, design or location, the association may not restrict the owner's right to select from among the options provided.
• § 720.3035(3) — each parcel has one front for setback purposes unless the declaration says otherwise, and where the declaration sets no setback the applicable county or municipal setbacks apply and the association may not override them.
• § 720.3035(4) — an owner is entitled to the rights stated in the declaration; a denial must state in writing which specific rule or standard the application violated; and an owner may recover damages where the association unreasonably, knowingly and willfully infringes those rights.
• § 720.3035(6) — the association must adopt hurricane protection specifications consistent with the building code and may not deny an application that conforms to them, though it may require consistency with the existing aesthetic scheme.

Restrictions the association may not impose at all

Three sections of Chapter 720 override the declaration outright. A board that enforces against them is enforcing an unenforceable provision, and the prevailing-party fee provision in § 720.305(1) makes that expensive.

Section 720.3045 is the one that surprises boards most. The visibility test is not whether the item is tasteful or whether a neighbor complained. If the boat, the garden or the clothesline cannot be seen from the frontage, an adjacent parcel, an adjacent common area or a community golf course, the association may not restrict it, and the covenant saying otherwise does not help.

When the board needs a member vote

Chapter 720 reserves certain decisions to the membership. Taking one of these at a board meeting produces an action the association may have to undo.

Special assessments deserve care. Chapter 720 does not grant a general power to special assess. The power comes from the declaration, and § 720.315 restricts a developer-controlled board's ability to levy them. What Chapter 720 does supply is procedure: an assessment may not be levied at a board meeting unless the notice states that assessments will be considered and describes their nature, and written notice must go out not less than 14 days before the meeting.

Contracting has its own limit. Under § 720.3055(1), a contract for materials, equipment or services requiring payment that exceeds 10 percent of the total annual budget including reserves requires competitive bids. Contracts with association employees and contracts for attorney, accountant, architect, community association manager, engineering and landscape architect services are excepted. The requirement is about process, not about who signs, and a board that skips it has handed an unhappy owner an argument. Our overview of the board's legal authority collects the recurring questions.

A rule is not an amendment

This confusion causes more litigation in HOAs than any other governance question. A rule and a covenant amendment are different instruments with different requirements and different force.

A rule is adopted by the board under authority the declaration gives it. It needs no vote of the owners, and the same board can change it next month.

An amendment changes the covenants themselves, requires the vote § 720.306(1)(b) or your declaration specifies, and must be recorded. Section 720.306(1)(b) also requires the association to provide copies of a recorded amendment to members within 30 days of recording or to notify them where the recorded amendment can be found.

The line between them is not the parcel line. Nearly every declaration we read grants the board authority to adopt rules governing the use of parcels, and it is rare to find one that withholds rulemaking authority over parcel use entirely. Where the grant is there, the board may adopt those rules without a vote of the owners. The first question is not which side of the lot line the rule falls on. It is what the declaration's grant of rulemaking authority actually reaches.

So read the grant first, then test the rule against it. A rule that falls inside the grant, is consistent with the declaration, and is reasonable is a rule, whether it governs hours at the pool or what an owner may do on the owner's own lot. A rule that contradicts the declaration, or reaches a subject the grant does not cover, is an amendment in disguise and needs the amendment vote. That holds on either side of the parcel line. The failure we see is rarely a board regulating parcels at all. It is a board regulating parcels further than its own grant goes.

Reasonableness is the second half of the test, and it comes from case law rather than from Chapter 720. Hidden Harbour Estates, Inc. v. Norman, 309 So. 2d 180 (Fla. 4th DCA 1975), is the source of the requirement that a board-adopted rule be reasonable. The formulation usually quoted is that the rule be reasonably related to the promotion of the health, happiness and peace of mind of the unit owners. That language comes from the later Hidden Harbour Estates, Inc. v. Basso, 393 So. 2d 637 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981). Both are condominium cases. In our view the reasonableness requirement carries over to homeowners' associations, and it is argued that way routinely, but a board should know the standard is borrowed from the condominium line rather than written into Chapter 720.

Parcel-use rules also carry their own notice requirement, and it is not the ordinary one. Section 720.303(2)(c) requires notices of all board meetings to identify the agenda items and to be posted in a conspicuous place in the community at least 48 hours before the meeting, except in an emergency. Section 720.303(2)(c)2. requires considerably more when the board will take up amendments to rules regarding parcel use. Written notice of the meeting must be mailed, delivered or electronically transmitted to the members and parcel owners, and posted conspicuously on the property or broadcast on closed-circuit cable television, not less than 14 days before the meeting. The same sentence covers meetings at which special assessments will be considered. A parcel-use rule adopted on 48 hours' posted notice alone is vulnerable on procedure whatever its merits.

One wrinkle in that text. Section 720.303(2)(c)2. speaks of "amendments to rules regarding parcel use." It does not say what notice is required to adopt a parcel-use rule for the first time. Our practice is to give the 14-day notice for adoption as well as for amendment. The extra notice costs the association nothing, and the argument it forecloses is not one worth having.

Timing also matters for rental restrictions. Under § 720.306(1)(h), a governing document amendment that prohibits or regulates rental agreements applies only to owners who acquire title after the effective date or who consent, with narrow exceptions permitting restrictions on rentals shorter than six months and on renting more than three times a year. An association that adopts a rental cap and applies it to everyone has a problem waiting.

Directors, conflicts and the record

Authority questions often arrive dressed as conflict questions. Section 720.3033(2) requires a director or officer with a financial interest in a contract or transaction to follow the Chapter 617 procedure, have the disclosure entered in the minutes, and obtain approval by two-thirds of the directors present. The members may then cancel the contract by majority vote at their next meeting. Section 720.3033(3) makes soliciting or accepting anything of value from a vendor without consideration a third-degree felony, with narrow exceptions for a meal under $25 at a business meeting and items received at a trade fair.

Because Chapter 617 was rewritten by Ch. 2026-168 effective July 1, 2026, and § 720.3033(2) and (3) were reenacted to incorporate the changes to §§ 617.0830, 617.0832 and 617.0834, a conflict analysis run against the older version of the corporate statute may not be reliable now. Conflict policies and disclosure forms adopted before mid-2026 should be reviewed.

Whatever the decision, write down the authority. A motion that recites the section of the declaration or the statute relied on, and minutes that record it, convert a contested judgment call into a documented one. That is also the practical answer when an owner proceeds with work the committee never approved, a situation covered in our guide on unapproved owner improvements.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes advises homeowners' association boards in Southwest Florida on the scope of board authority, architectural review, rulemaking and covenant amendments, and reviews policies and application forms against the current statute. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Corporate Governance page.