Last week, Governor DeSantis signed into law a bill that is the most comprehensive change to how homeowners associations oversee their communities.
It is nearly 50 pages of new procedures, restrictions and compliance steps required of most homeowners associations in Florida.
It covers everything from websites to garbage cans, from violations on Christmas lights to commercial vehicles.
There are new requirements for board members, who must take a class on HOA management, along with complete continuing education every year.
In addition, earlier in the week, he signed a different HOA bill that covered hurricane improvements to homes and property of an HOA. It went into effect immediately, so HOAs need to set regulations for fuel tanks, generators and hurricane shutters very quickly.
Over the next few weeks, I will share more in-depth articles and videos on some of the more sweeping changes. Here are a few for you today.
An association can regulate them, however!
Under the new Florida law, HB 293, HOAs can not prevent any homeowner from fortifying their property for hurricane season.
This covers a wide range of improvements from roofing systems to fuel tanks. While you can't prevent them from being installed, you can put various restrictions - like color or placement - to help them conform to community standards.
Plus, the law requires all HOAs to develop "hurricane protection specifications" for every structure in the community.
If you are an association with more than 100 homes, chances are you will need to have a significant upgrade to your community website by January 1.
The new law requires dozens of documents to now be stored in a web portal for seven years.
And, the association must provide a password and user name to the portal to every homeowner that wants those records.
There are many new requirements for maintaining and providing public records.
For the first time, directors can be criminally charged if they deny or delay providing records for specific reasons.
It is more important than ever to have a strict policy on how to provide records to the community and those are followed explicitly with every single records request.
Anyone involved with associations has probably seen some issues arise about commercial work vehicles. It is one of the more common issues that communities grapple with.
However, the state has now made it so that any vehicle under 26,000 pounds can be parked in a driveway.
To put that in perspective, a traditional school bus weighs less than that. Only the heaviest recreational vehicles would be in this category.
There are some steps you can take, such as requiring equipment to be removed, that can help.
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