Evictions in a Florida Mobile Home Community: The Grounds, the Notices and the Procedure Under Section 723.061

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: Mobile home communities

A mobile home eviction removes a family from a structure they own, sitting on a lot they rent. Florida law responds to that imbalance by making the grounds exclusive. Section 723.061(1) permits eviction for nonpayment of the lot rental amount, for a conviction, for certain rule and agreement violations, for a change in use of the land, and for failure to be approved for tenancy. Nothing else is a ground, and each one carries its own notice.

Why a mobile home eviction is not an ordinary eviction

The homeowner owns the home. The park owner owns the lot, the streets and the utility systems. Moving a home that has sat on a lot for twenty years often costs more than the home is worth, and in much of Southwest Florida there is nowhere to move it to. The Legislature answered that by taking the grounds for termination out of the parties' hands. Section 723.031(9) limits termination to the grounds in § 723.061, § 723.032(1) says a lot rental agreement may not provide for termination on any other basis, and § 723.032(2) voids any provision that waives or cuts down a right the chapter gives.

The chapter reaches a residential tenancy in which a mobile home is placed on a rented lot in a park where 10 or more lots are offered for rent. § 723.002(1). If the same person rents out both the home and the lot, the tenancy falls under Part II of Chapter 83 instead. Our overview of what Chapter 723 governs sets out the boundary.

Many communities in Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties are now resident owned. When residents acquire the park under § 723.071, the association stands in the park owner's place for every lot still rented.

The five grounds and the notice each one requires

This is the whole of § 723.061(1).

Chronic complaints, a board's loss of patience, an unpaid fine, a home the board considers too old, a refusal to sign a new lease: none is a ground.

Nonpayment: the written demand and the five days

Under § 723.061(1)(a) the park owner makes a written demand for the lot rental amount, and the ground matures only if the default continues for 5 days after delivery. What may be demanded is fixed by definition: the lot rental amount under § 723.003(6) is all financial obligations except user fees required as a condition of the tenancy. User fees require the homeowner's consent under § 723.031(3), and undisclosed fees may not be collected at all, with refusal to pay them excluded as a ground for eviction by § 723.031(6).

The statute gives the court a safety valve. If the homeowner pays the lot rental amount with late charges, court costs and attorney's fees, the court may deny eviction for good cause where nonpayment has not occurred more than twice. That counting rule belongs to the nonpayment ground; it is not the two-violations-in-12-months structure that governs rule violations. Our guide to lot rental agreements covers what may lawfully be charged as rent.

Rule and agreement violations: two tracks, not one

This is the provision boards and managers misread most often. Paragraph (1)(c) does not create a general ground for breaking a park rule. It creates two separate tracks, and everyday violations land on the harder one.

Track one is § 723.061(1)(c)1. It covers a first violation of a properly promulgated rule, a rental agreement provision, or the chapter itself, but only where a court of competent jurisdiction finds that the act endangered the life, health, safety or property of park residents or employees, or the peaceful enjoyment of the park by its residents. The homeowner must vacate within 7 days after delivery. The seriousness is something the park owner has to prove, not a label the notice assigns itself.

Track two is § 723.061(1)(c)2., the route for an ordinary violation. It reaches a second violation of the same rule, agreement provision or statutory provision within 12 months, and is available only if the park owner gave written notice within 30 days after the first violation specifying the acts and giving 7 days to correct the noncompliance. Where that notice was given, the second violation is a ground, curing it afterward is no defense, and the eviction notice must be delivered at least 30 days before the vacate date.

Two limits close the paragraph. A violation occurring more than one year after the first violation of the same provision is not a ground. And a properly promulgated rule may not be arbitrarily applied and used as a ground for eviction, which is where the selective-enforcement defense lives. Both depend on records kept long before anyone considers filing, the subject of our guide to park rules and enforcement.

Conviction, and failure to qualify for tenancy

Paragraph (1)(b) requires a conviction of a violation of a federal or state law or local ordinance that may be deemed detrimental to the health, safety or welfare of other park residents. An arrest is not a conviction, and a neighbor's account is not a conviction.

Paragraph (1)(e) applies where a properly promulgated rule requires approval of purchasers, prospective tenants or occupants and the person fails to qualify. Approval is constrained: under § 723.059(1) a purchaser of a home situated in the park may become a tenant on meeting the entry requirements in the rules, and approval may not be unreasonably withheld. Screening criteria also have to survive the federal and Florida fair housing acts. See our guide to occupancy and resident approval.

Form and service of the notice

Section 723.061(4) is short and unforgiving. Except for the notice to the officers of the homeowners' association under subparagraph (1)(d)1., any notice required by the section must be in writing, must be posted on the premises, and must be sent by certified or registered mail with return receipt requested, addressed to the mobile home owner and to the tenant or occupant at the last known address. Mailed notice is deemed given 5 days after the date of the postmark.

Three things follow. Posting alone is not service. First-class mail alone is not service, and neither is hand delivery by the manager. And the notice period does not begin the day the letter goes out; delivery is postmark plus five, and the 5-day or 7-day period runs from there.

There is a limited safe harbor for accepting money afterward. Under § 723.061(5), a park owner who accepts any portion of the lot rental amount with actual knowledge of a noncompliance, after notice and termination under paragraph (1)(b), (1)(c) or (1)(e), does not waive the right to terminate or sue for that noncompliance, though it does waive it as to subsequent or continuing noncompliance. Paragraph (1)(a) is not on that list.

The court case

Under § 723.061(3), the park owner files a complaint in the county court where the lot is situated, describing the lot and stating the facts that authorize removal. The park owner is entitled to the summary procedure of § 51.011, and the court advances the cause on the calendar. That speed cuts both ways: it also compresses the time available to fix a notice problem just discovered.

Section 723.063 sets the defenses. In an action for possession or rent, the homeowner may raise material noncompliance with any portion of Chapter 723 and any other legal or equitable defense, but must have given written notice 7 days before withholding rent, and must deposit the disputed accrued rent into the court registry. Failure to deposit waives all defenses other than payment and entitles the park owner to an immediate default. § 723.063(2).

Retaliation is its own trap. Section 723.0615 makes it unlawful to bring or threaten eviction, or to discriminatorily increase rent or decrease services, primarily in retaliation for a code complaint to a governmental agency, for organizing or participating in a homeowners' organization, or for a complaint about noncompliance with § 723.022. Good cause is a defense, but timing creates the appearance.

The writ, and what happens to the home

If the park owner wins, the clerk issues a writ of possession to the sheriff describing the lot, and under § 723.062(1) the writ may not issue earlier than 10 days from the date judgment is granted. On execution, § 723.062(2) allows the landlord or its agent to remove personal property to or near the property line and the mobile home into storage, with the sheriff available to keep the peace at a reasonable hourly rate paid by the requesting party, and none of them responsible to the tenant for loss or damage after removal.

That is not a license to treat the home as scrap. Most homes carry a lienholder, and Chapter 723 puts the lienholder ahead of the park. Section 723.085(1) makes it unlawful to execute a writ of possession on a home undergoing foreclosure of a properly noticed purchase money or first lien, or that the lienholder has foreclosed and now holds title to, so long as the lot rental amount is paid under § 723.084(6). A buyer at that sale still has to qualify for tenancy, and if the buyer does not, the park owner must proceed under § 723.061 again.

Storage charges are governed by § 723.084. They accrue from 5 days after the lienholder receives written notice of the eviction or abandonment stating the filing date, the daily charge and what must be paid, and the lienholder has 30 days to say whether it will pay. The maximum daily rate is one-thirtieth of the last monthly lot rental amount, and a park owner may not refuse repossession over charges it never properly noticed.

The errors that get an eviction dismissed

In roughly the order we see them:

1. Evicting on a ground that is not in § 723.061. A lease clause or rule that creates its own termination right is void under § 723.032.
2. Treating an everyday rule violation as a first-violation eviction under (1)(c)1. Without proof of endangerment, the only route is the second-violation track.
3. Never sending the 7-day correction notice within 30 days after the first violation, then trying to evict on the second.
4. Confusing the two notice periods in (1)(c): 7 days to vacate on a first violation, but at least 30 days before the vacate date on a second.
5. Using a second violation more than a year after the first, or a violation of a different rule.
6. Serving by regular mail, by hand, or by posting alone, or counting the period from the date of mailing rather than 5 days after the postmark.
7. Demanding sums that are not part of the lot rental amount, including undisclosed charges or an increase imposed without the 90-day notice required by § 723.037(1). See our guide to the lot rental increase procedure.
8. Enforcing a rule against one household that the park has not enforced against others.
9. In a change of use, missing the association purchase notice or the 20-day Division copy. See change of use and relocation.

Fees run both directions. Section 723.068 entitles the prevailing party in a private proceeding to enforce the chapter to a reasonable attorney's fee, except as provided in § 723.037. A defective notice can make the association pay for the homeowner's lawyer, and then start over.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes advises mobile home community boards and managers in Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties on lot tenancy notices, rule enforcement and eviction procedure under Chapter 723, and reviews notices before they go out rather than after they fail. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Covenant Enforcement page.