Florida Condo Association Law: Chapter 718 Explained

If you own a Florida condo, your rulebook is Chapter 718 of the Florida Statutes — the Condominium Act — not Chapter 720, which governs single-family and townhome HOAs. The two chapters share a lot of vocabulary (boards, assessments, fines, records requests) but they are separate statutes with separate deadlines and separate exceptions. This guide covers what Chapter 718 actually requires for board meetings, records, and director eligibility. For the 2026 reserve and inspection overhaul specifically, see our Florida condo laws 2026 guide. If you’re not sure whether your community is a condo or an HOA at all, start with condo association vs. HOA.

This is general information, not legal advice, and Chapter 718 has been amended repeatedly in recent years. Confirm the current statute and your declaration, and talk to a Florida community-association attorney about your specific situation.

What Chapter 718 covers

• Formation and governing documents. The declaration of condominium, articles of incorporation, and bylaws — together, these are the association’s governing documents, and Chapter 718 sets the outer limits on what they can require.
• Board meetings and notice. § 718.112(2) sets minimum notice and open-meeting requirements — see below.
• Official records. § 718.111(12) defines what counts as an official record and how quickly the association has to produce one on request.
• Assessments, budgets, and reserves. Chapter 718 governs how regular and special assessments are levied and collected, and — since the 2022–2024 reforms — mandates structural reserve funding for taller buildings. See our SIRS guide and Florida condo laws 2026 for the reserve and milestone-inspection specifics.
• Insurance. § 718.111 requires the association to maintain adequate property insurance on the condominium property — see condo association insurance.
• Director eligibility. Board certification and, as of 2026, an 8-consecutive-year term limit — see below.
• Turnover. Control passes from the developer to an owner-elected board once a statutory threshold is met — see our HOA and condo turnover guide for what the developer has to hand over and the transition audit that should follow.
• Dispute resolution. Many disputes between an owner and the association go through mandatory pre-suit mediation or arbitration under § 718.1255 before either side can file suit.

Board meetings and notice

Under § 718.112(2), board meetings must generally stay open to unit owners. The standard notice rule under § 718.112(2)(c) is a notice posted conspicuously on the condominium property — somewhere owners would actually see it, like a lobby or mailroom board, not an office staff-only area — at least 48 continuous hours before the meeting, and the notice must identify the agenda items. The statute doesn’t require mailing notice of a routine board meeting (though associations often do it anyway, since it creates a paper trail). Meetings that will address a special assessment or certain amendments to the governing documents are different: those require their own 14-day mailed, delivered, or electronic notice on top of the posting — confirm the specific rule for what’s on the agenda rather than assuming the 48-hour baseline always applies.

Recent legislation added a quarterly board-meeting requirement for condo associations with 10 or more units. Associations that hold a board meeting by video conference must also provide a physical location where owners can attend in person, and the video meeting must be recorded and kept as an official record.

Does Florida’s Sunshine Law apply to condo associations?

Not directly. Florida’s actual Government-in-the-Sunshine Law (Chapter 286) applies to public agencies — cities, counties, school boards — not private condo associations. But § 718.112(2) gives condo owners a similar practical result through its own open-meeting requirement: board meetings have to stay open, with a conspicuously posted 48-hour agenda notice under § 718.112(2)(c), except for a narrow carve-out for meetings with the association’s attorney about pending litigation. If someone tells you “the Sunshine Law requires my condo board to post notice,” the result they’re describing is accurate — it’s just the wrong statute. The one that actually applies is § 718.112(2), not Chapter 286.

Records requests

Under § 718.111(12), owners can request official records in writing. The association generally must make the records available for inspection within 5 working days. If it hasn’t produced them within 10 working days, that failure creates a rebuttable presumption that the association violated the statute — which can expose it to statutory damages up to $500 and the prevailing owner’s attorney fees under § 718.303(1). This mirrors the HOA records rule under Chapter 720, but the specific day counts and the “working days” framing are the condo-specific version — don’t assume the two chapters use identical deadlines.

The new 8-year director term limit

Since 2018, Chapter 718 has capped how long a condo director can serve without a fresh vote of confidence from the ownership. Under § 718.112(2)(d), a director generally cannot serve more than 8 consecutive years, with two narrow exceptions:

1. Owners representing two-thirds of the votes cast in an election re-elect the termed-out director, or
2. There aren’t enough eligible candidates to fill the open seats.

Only board service on or after July 1, 2018 counts toward the 8-year total — which is why boards are only really feeling this rule now. The first directors to hit 8 consecutive years of countable service reached that limit in 2026, not back when the law passed. If your board has a long-serving director, this is worth checking now rather than after an election gets challenged.

Term limits are a separate requirement from board certification — the 90-day written-certification-or-course rule that also lives inside § 718.112(2)(d). Certification is about whether a new director is qualified to serve at all; the term limit is about how many consecutive years they can keep serving once qualified. See our Florida board certification guide for the certification side.

Who regulates Florida condo associations

The DBPR (Department of Business and Professional Regulation) regulates condominiums under Chapter 718, including approving board-certification course providers and fielding certain owner complaints. That’s a real structural difference from single-family HOAs under Chapter 720, which have no dedicated state regulator — an HOA owner with a dispute generally has to go straight to mediation, arbitration, or court, while a condo owner has a state agency in the picture for at least some issues.

Sales, leases, and buyer approval

Many Florida condo declarations give the association a right of approval or first refusal over unit sales and leases — this is common and generally enforceable if it’s actually written into the recorded declaration. What the association cannot do, regardless of what the declaration says, is deny a sale or lease for a reason that violates the federal Fair Housing Act — race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status, or disability. If you’re buying into or selling a Florida condo, check the declaration’s specific approval process and timeline rather than assuming either that approval is automatic or that it can’t be denied.

How Chapter 718 differs from Chapter 720

Topic	Chapter 718 (condo)	Chapter 720 (HOA)
State regulator	DBPR	None
Director term limit	8 consecutive years (§ 718.112(2)(d))	No statewide cap
Records production	5 / 10 working days (§ 718.111(12))	10 business days (§ 720.303(5))
Structural reserves	Mandatory SIRS for 3+ story buildings	No SIRS equivalent
Insurance mandate	Detailed statutory formula (§ 718.111)	Left mostly to governing documents

If you’re trying to figure out which chapter actually applies to your community — condo, single-family HOA, co-op, or a Community Development District — start with our condo vs. HOA guide or CDD vs. HOA guide before assuming either statute governs you.

If you’re in a dispute

Records fights, fine hearings, and board-eligibility challenges all follow specific statutory steps. A Florida community-association attorney can tell you quickly whether the board followed the law — see our guide on what an HOA lawyer costs for typical fee ranges before you call one. For the 2026 reserve and assessment wave specifically, see Florida condo laws 2026.