Raising Lot Rent Under Section 723.037: The 90-Day Notice, the 60-Day Meeting, and What Makes an Increase Unreasonable

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

Section 723.037 of the Florida Statutes does not tell a park owner how much rent to charge. It tells the park owner when and how to announce a change, whom to tell, what to say, and whom to sit down with before the change takes effect. The calendar is short and it runs backward from the effective date: 90 days out, written notice. No later than 60 days out, a meeting with the homeowners' committee. Thirty days after the last meeting, the window to petition for mediation closes. Miss a step and the step does not simply pass; it moves the effective date.

What section 723.037 controls, and what it does not

The section governs three things a park owner may want to do: increase the lot rental amount, reduce the services or utilities the park owner provides, and change the rules and regulations. It governs all three the same way. There is no shorter path for a rule change and no longer one for a large rent increase.

What the section does not do is set a ceiling. Nothing in Chapter 723 caps a lot rent increase at a percentage, ties it to an index, or requires the park owner to justify the number to a regulator before charging it. The check on the amount is section 723.033, which is a judicial remedy, and the check on the process is section 723.037. They are different tools and they are used at different times.

It is also worth knowing where the Division sits. Under section 723.005 the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes has no power to enforce park rules and regulations and no power to enforce section 723.033. It receives the annual filing of increase notices and administers the mediation program, but it does not decide whether a rent increase is too high. A court does. Our overview of what Chapter 723 governs sets out the rest of the division of labor.

The 90-day notice and who must receive it

Section 723.037(1) requires written notice to each affected mobile home owner and to the board of directors of the homeowners' association, if one has been formed, at least 90 days before the increase, reduction or rule change takes effect. Both recipients matter. A park owner who mails every homeowner but skips the association board has not given the notice the statute requires, and a park owner who notifies only the board has not either.

The notice must identify all other affected homeowners. It may do that by lot number, by name, or by group or phase. If the notice does not identify them by name, the park owner must make the names and addresses available on request. That requirement exists so a homeowner reading the notice can tell how wide the change reaches and can find the other people who would have to join a committee designation.

Ninety days is a floor. Counting backward from the effective date is the only reliable way to build the calendar, because the committee meeting deadline is also measured from the effective date rather than from the notice.

What the notice has to say

Section 723.037(2) is unusually modest about content. For a rent increase, the notice need only state the dollar amount of the relevant portions of the present lot rental amount that are being increased, the dollar amount of the proposed increase, and the effective date. For a reduction in services or utilities, it states the reduction and the effective date. For a rule change, it states the change and the effective date.

The statute does not require the notice to explain why. The explanation is owed at the committee meeting, and a park owner whose notice argues its own case has given the committee something to work with 30 days earlier than the statute required. From the committee's side the point is the opposite: a notice reading only "lot rent increases from $685 to $742 effective April 1" complies. The absence of a reason is not a defect. The place to demand reasons is the meeting.

Reductions in services and rule changes ride the same track

Boards and committees routinely miss this. Closing a shuffleboard court, ending trash valet service, converting a metered utility, and adopting a new pet rule are all changes that require the same 90-day notice, the same committee meeting, and the same disclosure at that meeting as a rent increase does.

The mediation grounds in section 723.037(5)(a) track the same three categories. Homeowners may claim that an increase is unreasonable, that the resulting lot rental amount is unreasonable, that a reduction in services or utilities was not accompanied by a corresponding decrease in rent, or that a change in the rules and regulations is unreasonable. The third of those is the one park owners underestimate. Cutting a service without touching the rent is itself a ground for mediation.

None of this displaces the separate rules on how park rules are written and enforced day to day. See our guide to park rules and enforcement for the enforcement side, and the guide to prospectus requirements for what the prospectus already locked in at the start of the tenancy.

Pass-through charges, taxes and utilities

A pass-through charge is defined at section 723.003(17) as the mobile home owner's proportionate share of the necessary and actual direct costs and impact or hookup fees for a governmentally mandated capital improvement. It is a narrow category. It is not a way to recover ordinary capital spending the park owner chose to do.

When a notice under section 723.037(1) includes pass-through charges, they must be separately listed as to three things: the amount of the charge, the name of the governmental entity mandating the capital improvement, and the nature or type of the pass-through charge being levied. A single line reading "county assessment pass-through" satisfies none of the three.

Separately, section 723.031(5) governs what may be collected during the term of a lot rental agreement. The lot rental amount may not be increased during the term except as the statute permits, which includes ad valorem property taxes, non-ad valorem assessments, utility charges and pass-through charges where they were disclosed before tenancy, were being passed on as a matter of custom, or were authorized by law. A park owner is deemed to have disclosed ad valorem taxes and non-ad valorem assessments if they were disclosed as a separate charge or as a factor for increasing the lot rental amount in the prospectus or the rental agreement.

The practical consequence is that mid-term tax and utility pass-ons live in section 723.031(5), not in section 723.037, and they rise or fall on what the prospectus and the lot rental agreement disclosed years ago. Pull those documents before treating a charge as automatic.

The committee meeting no later than 60 days before the effective date

Section 723.037(4)(a) requires the park owner and a homeowners' committee to meet no later than 60 days before the effective date of the change to discuss the reasons for it. The committee is defined at section 723.003(5): a committee of not more than five people, designated by a majority of the affected homeowners, or, if a homeowners' association has been formed, designated by the board of directors of the association.

That definition also carries a power that surprises people on both sides. The committee is authorized to enter into a binding agreement with the park owner, including a binding mediation agreement, on behalf of the association, its members, and all other mobile home owners in the park. Five people can settle the increase for everyone. Choosing them is not a formality, and the records that verify how they were selected have to be produced later if the matter goes to mediation.

At the meeting, section 723.037(4)(b)1. requires the park owner to disclose and explain in good faith all material factors resulting in the decision to increase the lot rental amount, and to prepare a written summary of those material factors and retain a copy for three years. The obligation is the park owner's. If no summary exists three years later, the park owner is the one without a record of what was disclosed.

Comparable parks are where the 2024 rewrite landed. Section 723.037(4)(b)2. tells the park owner it shall not limit the comparable mobile home park disclosure to parks owned or operated by the same owner or operator, subject to defined exceptions turning on the market area, unique attributes of the park, the scarcity of comparable parks in the geographic area, and professional valuation considerations. The default is disclosure beyond the owner's own portfolio; the same-ownership limitation is the exception that has to be justified.

If the committee disagrees about the comparables, section 723.037(4)(c) gives it 15 days after the meeting to say so in writing and to request a second meeting, and the park owner must meet within 30 days after receiving that request. Under (4)(d) the two sides may agree in writing to extend or continue any meeting, and under (4)(e) either side may prepare and use additional information to support its position during or after the meetings.

What "unreasonable" means

Section 723.037 never defines it. Section 723.033 does, and that section has not been amended since 1990.

• The rule. A lot rental amount in excess of market rent is unreasonable. § 723.033(3).
• Market rent. The rent that would result from market forces absent an unequal bargaining position between park owners and mobile home owners. § 723.033(4).
• Comparables. A court may consider rents charged by comparable parks in the park's competitive area. To be comparable, a park must offer similar facilities, services, amenities and management. § 723.033(5).
• Other factors. Increases or decreases in the consumer price index published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, increases or decreases in operating costs or taxes, and prior disclosures. § 723.033(6).
• Remedies. A court may refuse to enforce the agreement or the increase, enforce the remainder without the unreasonable provision, limit the provision to avoid an unreasonable result, award a refund or a reduction in future rent, or grant other equitable relief. § 723.033(1).

Two points follow. First, the four statutory factors are the same four the park owner is disclosing at the committee meeting, which is why the written summary matters so much: it is a contemporaneous record built on the criteria a court would later apply. Second, section 723.033(7) provides that an arbitrator or mediator acting under sections 723.037, 723.038 and 723.0381 must employ the same standards. The mediation is not a negotiation in the dark. It runs on the market rent test.

A defective notice, and what actually happens

Here is where the statute is quieter than most people expect. Section 723.037 does not state a penalty for a defective notice. It does not say the increase is void, and it does not say the park owner must start over. What it says is when the notice must be given and what it must contain.

The consequences that do appear in the chapter are these. An increase cannot take effect earlier than 90 days after a conforming notice, so a late or incomplete notice moves the effective date rather than cancelling the increase. A park owner who never held the section 723.037(4) meeting has no written summary and no disclosed comparables to rely on later. And under section 723.037(6), a party who requests mediation and is refused takes attorney's fees off the table for the refusing side: section 723.068 otherwise entitles the prevailing party in a private proceeding to a reasonable fee, but it opens with the words "Except as provided in s. 723.037."

For a committee, the practical move on a defective notice is not to ignore it. It is to preserve the objection in writing, appear at the meeting, and keep the 30-day mediation window in view, because the window in section 723.037(5)(a) runs from the last scheduled meeting regardless of what the committee thinks of the notice. Our guide to Chapter 723 mediation covers that filing, and the guide to homeowners' committees and associations covers how the committee gets designated in the first place.

The park owner's equivalent move is to fix the calendar rather than argue about it. Reissuing a clean notice with a later effective date costs one quarter of the increase. Litigating a 90-day count costs more, and section 723.068 puts the other side's fees on the table.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes works with mobile home community clients across Lee, Collier and Charlotte Counties on the Chapter 723 increase calendar, from drafting the 90-day notice and the section 723.037(4) disclosure package to handling the committee meeting and any mediation that follows. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Regulatory Compliance page.