Every August and September brings the same email to Park & Palm Connect from a board member who read something online: a bill number, a rumor about a new filing fee, a claim that a deadline moved. Most of the time the answer is short. The 2026 Regular Session of the Florida Legislature ended on March 13, 2026, and made no substantive changes to Chapters 718, 719, or 720, the three statutes that actually govern condominiums, cooperatives, and homeowners’ associations. No deadline, filing duty, or governance requirement in those chapters was added, removed, or altered this year.
The statute text still moved at the margins. The session’s general reviser’s bill, ch. 2026-14, Laws of Florida (effective May 12, 2026), and a conforming-amendments section inside HB 797, ch. 2026-168, Laws of Florida, updated cross-references in several sections, including s. 718.111, to point to the renumbered Chapter 617 provisions HB 797 created. Neither touch added, removed, or altered any obligation a board carries; they corrected citations, not duties.
Two bills from this session did become law and take effect this year. Several requirements from 2025’s HB 913 are still running on their own clocks. And two claims that circulate constantly among boards, about Sunbiz fees and DBPR registration, are simply wrong. This post walks through all three: what died, what passed, and what was already law and remains so.
This is general information, not a determination about your building or your association’s specific obligations. The notice above this article sets out what that means.
What died in the 2026 session
A long list of bills touching community association law was filed for 2026, and none of them became law. The most significant:
- HB 657, an omnibus bill covering Chapter 718 and Chapter 719.
- HB 465 and Senate companion SB 822, mandatory licensed community association management.
- SB 1498 and SB 1744, additional Senate proposals on association operations.
- HB 1541 and its companion, authorizing board and membership meetings by audio conference.
- HB 255 and SB 638, a proposed statewide condominium database.
Every one of these died in committee or on the calendar. The Community Associations Institute’s own end-of-session recap and Becker’s legislative review both confirm the same outcome: a quiet session for Chapters 718, 719, and 720. (Sources: CAI’s 2026 end-of-session summary and Becker’s review of the 2026 session.) If a board member forwards you a headline about one of these bills, the correct response is that it did not pass.
What passed: HB 797 rewrites the nonprofit corporation act
The session’s one substantive change to association governance came through Chapter 617, the corporate-law statute underneath every Florida community association, since each is, corporately, a Florida not-for-profit corporation. As noted above, HB 797’s conforming amendments also touched s. 718.111 directly, updating its cross-references to the renumbered Chapter 617 sections without changing the website-posting duty or any other obligation the section imposes.
HB 797 (ch. 2026-168, Laws of Florida), effective July 1, 2026, renames Chapter 617 the Florida Nonprofit Corporation Act and makes several changes that reach association boards directly:
- A new conflict-of-interest framework at section 617.0832, built around the concept of a “qualified director,” a director without a disqualifying interest in the transaction being reviewed.
- Revised standards of conduct for officers, paralleling the existing standard for directors.
- A judicial process for removing a director, giving a court a defined path to remove a director for cause.
- Default one-year director terms with holdover, meaning a director serves one year and continues to serve until a successor is elected or appointed, unless the association’s governing documents say otherwise.
- Default proxy rules where the governing documents are silent.
- Expanded liability protection for directors acting within the statute’s standards.
Here is the part every board should confirm with its own counsel: sections 718.3027 (condominiums) and 720.3033 (HOAs) both incorporate the section 617 conflict-of-interest test by reference, so the new qualified-director framework reaches directly into how a board evaluates a director’s conflict of interest. A written conflict-of-interest policy drafted against the old Chapter 617 language should be reviewed against the new section 617.0832 test. (Source: the Senate’s bill summary for HB 797.)
What passed: HB 803 and architectural review committees
The second bill to pass, HB 803 (ch. 2026-63, Laws of Florida), is narrower and applies only to homeowners’ associations. Effective July 1, 2026, it adds section 720.3035, providing that an HOA’s architectural review committee may not require an owner to have already obtained a government building permit as a condition of reviewing an architectural application.
In practice, the committee must review a design on its merits before a permit issues, not after. An ARC procedure that makes a permit a prerequisite to submission needs revision. (Source: the enrolled text of HB 803.)
What still applies, unchanged: 2025’s HB 913
None of this year’s session made a substantive change to the requirements 2025’s HB 913 put in place, though boards still ask as if this session might have softened them. It did not. As of this writing, these are all still current law:
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Insurance appraisals at least every 36 months.
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A DBPR online account for condominium and cooperative associations, with a 30-day duty to keep it updated.
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The structural integrity reserve study (SIRS) deadline, with the coordination provision for associations that also face a milestone inspection. The statute reads:
“A residential condominium or cooperative association subject to the SIRS requirements must obtain a structural integrity reserve study for each covered building at least every 10 years. For a unit-owner-controlled association existing on or before July 1, 2022, the initial study was required by December 31, 2025 for a condominium under s. 718.112(2)(g)7, and by December 31, 2024 for a cooperative under s. 719.106(1)(k)7, the 2025 extension in HB 913 was made to the condominium provision. Both are subject to the statutory coordination provision for certain milestone inspections due by December 31, 2026. Within 45 days after receiving the completed SIRS, the association must provide the required owner distribution or notice and submit the required completion statement to the Division using the Division’s prescribed process.”
And for an association that qualifies for the coordination provision:
“If this is a unit-owner-controlled association that existed on or before July 1, 2022, is subject to the SIRS requirement, and must complete a milestone inspection on or before December 31, 2026, the association may complete its initial SIRS simultaneously with that milestone inspection. The SIRS may not be completed after December 31, 2026.”
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A $25,000 threshold that changes how certain lower-cost reserve components are treated in the SIRS and reserve schedule. Confirm the mechanics with your reserve study provider; this is a detail worth getting precisely right rather than approximated.
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Videoconference meeting rules, including recording and notice requirements for meetings conducted by video conference.
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Mandatory electronic voting once owners representing 25 percent of the voting interests petition the association for it.
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Bank statements, ledgers, and meeting recordings added to the set of records a covered association must post to its website.
None of these came from the 2026 session, and none loosened because the session was quiet. They are all still running on the clocks HB 913 set in 2025.
What still applies, unchanged: 2024’s HB 1021
The website-posting mandate itself, condominiums under s. 718.111(12)(g), HOAs under s. 720.303, is a 2024 law whose substance was not changed this year; the conforming update to s. 718.111 noted above left subsection (12)(g) untouched. Condominium associations with 25 or more units have been covered since January 1, 2026, and HOAs with 100 or more parcels since January 1, 2025. If your association crossed either threshold and has no compliant site, that obligation exists independent of anything discussed above. For the full breakdown, see our condo compliance management guide.
Two things board members keep getting wrong
“Sunbiz will fine us $400 for a late annual report.” Not for a not-for-profit corporation. The $400 late fee Sunbiz assesses applies to for-profit corporations. A Florida community association is a not-for-profit corporation, and the consequence for missing the annual report deadline is different: administrative dissolution, if the report is not filed by the third Friday in September. That is a serious consequence, but it is not a $400 fine. (Source: Sunbiz’s own annual report guidance.)
“Our HOA needs a DBPR account too.” No. The online-account mandate from HB 913 applies to condominium associations under Chapter 718 and cooperative associations under Chapter 719. Homeowners’ associations under Chapter 720 are not part of that requirement and do not register with the Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes. If someone tells your HOA board it needs a DBPR account, that claim does not match the statute.
Two federal notes worth a board’s attention this quarter
Two federal developments, unrelated to Tallahassee, are relevant right now:
- On August 14, 2026, FinCEN issued a final rule permanently exempting domestic entities, including most associations, from beneficial ownership reporting under the Corporate Transparency Act. A tracked BOI filing obligation is gone, not merely paused. (Source: FinCEN’s announcement.)
- The National Flood Insurance Program’s authorization expires September 30, 2026, with no reauthorization enacted as of this writing. Associations carrying NFIP flood coverage, particularly coastal buildings, should watch this closely; a lapse has historically paused new policies and renewals until Congress acts. (Source: FEMA’s tracker on NFIP reauthorization.)
What your board should do this week
- Pull your conflict-of-interest policy. Confirm with counsel whether it meets the new section 617.0832 qualified-director test before the next transaction that raises a conflict question.
- If you are an HOA, check your ARC procedure. Confirm it does not require a building permit before the committee will review an architectural application; HB 803 makes that a problem as of July 1, 2026.
- Do not act on any bill that did not pass. HB 657, HB 465, SB 822, SB 1498, SB 1744, HB 1541, HB 255, and SB 638 are not law. If a vendor tells you otherwise, ask for the enrolled bill number.
- Confirm your building’s SIRS and milestone status directly, not from memory or rumor. Our milestone inspection deadline calculator produces an estimate from the dates you enter; confirm it with your local building official.
- Drop the BOI filing from your compliance checklist, and add NFIP reauthorization to your insurance committee’s agenda through the fall.
None of this requires waiting on Tallahassee. The session that just ended did not substantively change the deadlines your association is already working against, even though a reviser’s bill and HB 797’s conforming amendments moved some statute text at the margins. It changed two narrower things, both worth handling correctly, and left the substance of the rest where 2025 put it.