Nine homeowners' association bills died on one day. The law changed anyway.

Fifteen bills filed in the 2026 Florida legislative session cited chapter 720, the homeowners' association law. Nine of them were written about community associations: an ombudsman, a per-parcel fee to pay for the ombudsman, roofing materials, official records, audioconferencing, association management, and two omnibus rewrites. Every one of the nine carries the same last action date, 13 March 2026.

One of them had passed the House 108 to 2 eight days earlier.

The law changed anyway, twice, and neither change came from a bill anyone would have been tracking. The first arrived in an act about building permits and inspections. The second arrived in an act about nonprofit corporations, and it did not touch a word of chapter 720.

What changed in Florida HOA law in 2026?

Two things. Chapter 2026-63, an act about building permits and inspections, added a sentence to section 720.3035(1) barring an association from requiring a building permit before it will review a proposed improvement. Chapter 2026-168 rewrote the general standards for directors that section 720.303(1) applies to every association officer. Both took effect 1 July 2026.

The building permit provision is small and practical, and it fixes a circular problem. A county will often not issue a permit for work in a covenanted community without evidence of association approval, while an architectural review committee that demands a permit first leaves the owner with two authorities each waiting on the other. The new paragraph (c) of section 720.3035(1) says an association or committee may not require a permit to have been issued as a prerequisite for its own review. That is section 11 of a 12 section act, and it is the only chapter 720 provision in it.

The other 2026 act to reach the chapter is the reviser's bill, chapter 2026-14, whose section 47 corrects a pointer inside the website provision. The list of documents an association must post included board meeting notice as required by subsection (3), which is the minutes subsection. It now reads subsection (2), which is the one about board meetings. That is the whole of it.

Why did the standard for suing a director change when chapter 720 did not?

Because section 720.303(1) does not state the standard. It says that association officers and directors are subject to section 617.0830, in the not for profit corporation act, and have a fiduciary relationship to the members. Chapter 2026-168 substantially reworded 617.0830, substantially reworded 617.0832, and reordered and amended 617.0834. The reference did the rest.

Section 720.3033(2) does the same thing on conflicts of interest. Where an association enters a contract with one of its own directors, the board must comply with the requirements of section 617.0832 and enter the disclosures that section requires into the written minutes. Those requirements are now different requirements.

The old section 617.0832 offered three alternative ways to keep an interested transaction from being void or voidable: disclosure to the board and approval without counting the interested votes, disclosure to the members and approval by them, or the transaction being fair and reasonable to the corporation. Any one of the three sufficed. The enrolled text replaces that structure with a single defined test, fair to the corporation, meaning a transaction that is beneficial to the corporation and its members taking appropriate account of the director's dealings and of what an arm's length transaction might have produced. Disclosure and a vote of qualified directors or disinterested members no longer validate the transaction outright. They shift the burden of proving unfairness onto whoever challenges it. Where neither condition is met, the burden runs the other way, and the person defending the transaction must prove it was fair.

The act also supplies definitions the old section did without. A family member now expressly includes the director's spouse, and the child, stepchild, parent, stepparent, grandparent, sibling, stepsibling or half sibling of the director or of the director's spouse. A material financial interest is one that would reasonably be expected to impair the objectivity of a director's judgment.

Section 617.0834 moved further. It is the section 720.3033(3) points at when it makes an officer, director or manager who accepts a kickback subject to monetary damages, on top of a third degree felony and immediate removal from office. Before 1 July 2026 the immunity ran against claims by any person, and it fell away on a single trigger: recklessness, or an act or omission in bad faith or with malicious purpose or in wanton and willful disregard of human rights, safety or property. The enrolled text extends the immunity to claims by the corporation itself and then splits the trigger in two. In a proceeding brought by or in the right of the corporation or a member, the plaintiff must now show conscious disregard for the best interest of the corporation, or willful or intentional misconduct. The older recklessness formula survives only for proceedings brought by someone who is neither the corporation nor a member.

A new subsection also deems a director not to have derived an improper personal benefit where the transaction is not prohibited by law and is fair to the corporation as determined under section 617.0832. The two rewritten sections now lean on each other.

Two limits belong here rather than at the end. Section 617.0834 conditions itself on the organization being recognized under specified paragraphs of section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code, so its reach to any particular association depends on that association's own filing status, which no public document settles in the general case. And the Legislature reenacted 720.3033(2) and (3) and 720.316(1) expressly to incorporate the amendments, while leaving the 617.0830 reference in 720.303(1) alone. What that omission signifies, if anything, is not something the acts decide.

Are Florida HOA fines really capped at $100 and $1,000?

Not as caps. Section 720.305(2) provides that a fine may not exceed $100 per violation unless otherwise provided in the governing documents, and that a fine levied for each day of a continuing violation may not exceed $1,000 in the aggregate unless otherwise provided in the governing documents. The phrase appears twice. Both figures are defaults that a declaration may displace.

This is the single most repeated pair of numbers in circulation about Florida homeowners' associations, and the qualifier travels with them far less often than they do. The statute names no outer limit on what a declaration may substitute. What it does supply is procedure, and the procedure is where the numbers actually get decided.

A fine or a use suspension requires at least 14 days' written notice of the owner's right to a hearing, sent to the mailing or email address in the association's official records. The hearing must be held within 90 days of the notice, before a committee of at least three members appointed by the board who are not officers, directors or employees, nor the spouse, parent, child, brother or sister of one. The committee's role is expressly limited to confirming or rejecting what the board levied. It cannot reduce a fine. If it does not approve by majority vote, nothing may be imposed.

Then comes the provision that decides most cases. If the violation has been cured before the hearing, or in the manner the notice specified, no fine may be imposed at all. Cure defeats the levy outright.

Where a fine is confirmed, the committee must give written findings within 7 days and set a payment date at least 30 days after that notice is delivered. Attorney fees may not be awarded against the owner for anything the board did before that date, and may not begin to accrue until after it passes and the time for an appeal has expired. The statute does not say what the appeal is or where it goes.

One number in this section is a genuine floor rather than a ceiling. A fine of less than $1,000 may not become a lien against a parcel. An association operating on the statutory default therefore reaches lien territory only at the aggregate maximum itself, while an association whose declaration raised the aggregate arrives there sooner.

Two things no Florida association may fine over, regardless of what its documents say: garbage receptacles left at the curb or the end of the driveway within 24 hours before or after the collection time, and holiday decorations or lights, unless they are still up more than a week after the association has given written notice.

Where does a fine dispute actually go?

Nowhere cheap. Section 720.311 sends recall disputes and election disputes to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation for binding arbitration, on a filing fee of at least $200. Everything else on its list, covenant enforcement, meetings, amendments to the documents, and records access, goes to presuit mediation that the parties pay for themselves before anyone may file in court.

Fines are on neither track. The subsection that creates the mediation requirement excludes the collection of any assessment, fine or other financial obligation, including attorney fees and costs. So the category that generates the most complaint in Florida community living has no administrative forum, no mandatory mediation, and no route that does not begin in a courthouse.

The department's own homeowners' association rulebook shows the same shape. The compilation it links from its statutes and rules page contains chapters 61B-80, 61B-81 and 61B-85 in full, and all of it is arbitration procedure for recall and election disputes. The rules in 61B-80 carry an effective date of 3 February 2005. A search of that document for the word education returns nothing, two years after section 720.3033(1)(d) directed the department to adopt rules implementing the director education requirement.

Condominium owners have somewhere else to go. Section 718.5011 created an Office of the Condominium Ombudsman inside the same division in 2004. There is no homeowners' association equivalent. Bills to create one were filed in 2025 as SB 120 and HB 137, and again in 2026 as SB 906, paired with SB 908 to fund it through an annual per-parcel fee. All four died in committee.

What can a homeowner demand, and what happens when the association misses the deadline?

Records, on 10 business days. The official records must be kept in Florida for at least 7 years and made available for inspection or copying within 45 miles of the community or within the county. An association may not ask why. It may not require a stated purpose, and it may not confine inspection to less than one 8 hour business day per month.

Copying costs are fixed rather than negotiable: up to 25 cents a page on the association's own machine, personnel time only where retrieval and copying exceed half an hour and only above 25 pages, and then no more than $20 an hour. Owners may photograph the records with a phone or tablet instead, and the association may not charge for that.

Missing the deadline has a price. Where the request went by certified mail with return receipt requested, failure to provide access within 10 business days creates a rebuttable presumption that the association willfully failed to comply, and the member is entitled to minimum damages of $50 per calendar day for up to 10 days, counted from the 11th business day. The maximum is $500, which is less than an hour of most association counsel, and it is the only automatic money in the chapter.

The larger remedy is in a subsection almost nobody cites. Under section 720.303(14), an owner may make a written request for a detailed accounting of what they owe, and the board has 15 business days to answer. Failure to answer within that window, in the statute's own words, constitutes a complete waiver of any outstanding fines more than 30 days past due for which the association never gave prior written notice of imposition. One request, one missed deadline, and the stale fines are gone. The owner may not ask again for 90 days.

Which compliance deadlines have already passed?

Three, and all three are in the past. Associations were to have provided every member a physical or digital copy of the rules and covenants before 1 October 2024. Associations with 100 or more parcels were to have posted a defined document set on a website or downloadable application by 1 January 2025, including the declaration, the budget, the financial report, current insurance policies, director certifications, and any contract between the association and one of its own directors, behind a members only area with credentials issued on written request.

Director education is the continuing one. A new director has 90 days from election or appointment to file a certificate of completion, and a director who does not file is suspended from the board until they do, with the board free to fill the seat temporarily in the meantime. The certificate is valid for up to 4 years and the course must be retaken at least every 4 years, which puts the first wave of recertification on directors who qualified under the 2024 act. Continuing education runs annually on top of that: at least 4 hours for a director of an association under 2,500 parcels, at least 8 hours at or above it. The curriculum must cover financial literacy and transparency, recordkeeping, the levying of fines, and notice and meeting requirements.

The statute is careful about consequences here in a way that is easy to miss. Certificates must be retained for member inspection for 5 years, and the failure to have one on file does not affect the validity of any board action.

What did the 2025 session change?

Three provisions of chapter 720, all of them grammar. Eleven bills cited the chapter that year. The two omnibus community association bills and the standalone homeowners' association bill died on 16 June 2025, along with both ombudsman bills. The only act to reach the chapter was the reviser's bill, chapter 2025-6, whose sections 84, 85 and 86 amend 720.303(1), 720.3033(1)(a) and 720.3075(3)(d).

The edits are an article deleted before the words up to 4 years, and the word in replaced by at in a phrase about where an owner has a right to park. The reviser's notes read, in full, that the sections were amended to improve clarity and to confirm an editorial deletion to improve clarity.

Everything else a Florida homeowner has been told about the current state of the law traces to a single act. Chapter 2024-221, the enrolled version of House Bill 1203, took effect on 1 July 2024, and it appears ten times in the amendment history of the chapter as compiled, more than any other act. The board education requirement, the website mandate, the fine hearing procedure, the debit card ban, the kickback felony, the 15 business day accounting, and the copy of the rules every member was owed by that October are all its work.

That is the answer to what changed. One large act two years ago, one clarifying act since, one sentence about building permits, and a rewrite of the standards for directors that arrived through a chapter about nonprofit corporations and never mentioned homeowners at all.

Frequently asked questions

Can a Florida HOA fine me more than $100? Yes, if the governing documents say so. Section 720.305(2) sets $100 per violation and $1,000 in the aggregate, and attaches the words unless otherwise provided in the governing documents to each. The declaration is the document to check, and it controls where it names a different figure.

Can an HOA put a lien on my house for unpaid fines? Not below $1,000. Section 720.305(2) states that a fine of less than $1,000 may not become a lien against a parcel. The limit is on the lien, not on the fine, and an association whose documents raise the aggregate ceiling can reach the threshold on a continuing violation.

How long does an HOA have to give me its records? Ten business days from receipt of a written request. Where the request was sent by certified mail with return receipt requested, missing that deadline creates a rebuttable presumption of willful failure and entitles the member to $50 per calendar day for up to 10 days, counted from the 11th business day.

Did Florida pass any new HOA laws in 2026? No bill written about homeowners' associations passed. Two acts on other subjects changed the law: chapter 2026-63 barred associations from requiring a building permit before architectural review, and chapter 2026-168 rewrote the director standards in sections 617.0830, 617.0832 and 617.0834 that chapter 720 points at. Both took effect 1 July 2026.

Who regulates homeowners' associations in Florida? The Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes, but only over recall and election disputes, which it arbitrates under section 720.311. Other disputes go to owner funded presuit mediation and then to court, and fines are excluded even from mediation. There is no homeowners' association ombudsman.