Florida HOA Reform: Why We’re Taking the Fight to Tallahassee

A missed payment to your association should not cost you your home. This session, we are asking the Florida Legislature to make that the law.

A Lien Every 90 Seconds

In 2025, associations recorded 49,447 liens against Florida homeowners. That is the most of any state in the country, up 9.9% from 2024, and more than twice California’s total of 22,602. California has more community associations than Florida does. It also has stronger homeowner protections, and about half the liens.

Our attorneys see where those liens lead. A family misses a few assessments after a job loss, a hurricane, or a medical bill. The association records a lien. Late fees, interest, and collection charges attach to the debt. A foreclosure complaint follows. Months later, a home worth several hundred thousand dollars is sold at auction to satisfy a judgment of a few thousand, and the equity goes to whoever bid at the courthouse steps.

We have spent years fighting these cases one homeowner at a time. That work does not change the statute that allows them. So this year our attorneys drafted nine specific reforms to Chapters 718 and 720, Florida Statutes, each one modeled on a law already in force in another state, and launched a public petition at pmlawfla.com/hoa-reform to put homeowners’ names and stories in front of the Legislature ahead of the 2027 session. A Sarasota, FL HOA lawyer can help homeowners understand their rights when an association records a lien, pursues collection, or initiates foreclosure over unpaid assessments, while also explaining how proposed legislative reforms could affect those protections. 

Why Foreclosure Comes First

There is plenty to fix in Florida association law. Records requests get stonewalled. Fines get imposed without proper hearings. Boards ignore maintenance duties. We litigate all of it. But one problem sits above the rest, because it is the only one that ends with a family losing the house, and every other right a homeowner has depends on still owning the home.

Here is what current law allows:

• A lien over any amount. There is no minimum. An association can record a lien, and start the clock on attorney fees, over a debt of a few hundred dollars. By contrast, Florida already requires an HOA fine to reach $1,000 before it can become a lien. Assessments get no such floor.
• Payments that never reach the debt. A homeowner’s payment is applied to interest first, then late fees, then collection costs and attorney fees, and to the actual assessments last. Interest keeps running on a balance the payments never touch. A homeowner who pays every month can still fall further behind.
• Fees that grow when you contest the balance. The association’s attorney fees are added to the debt and secured by the same lien. Disputing a charge in good faith makes the number bigger.
• No required payment plan, no required mediation. Florida ran a statewide mediation program for mortgage foreclosures. Association foreclosures never got one. A case can go from complaint to summary judgment without anyone being required to sit down.
• No way back after the auction. The right to redeem ends the moment the sale closes. Six figures of equity can transfer to an auction bidder over a four-figure debt, and the former owner has no recourse.

None of this is a drafting accident. It is how the statute reads today, and it is why associations and their collection firms have little incentive to work anything out.

The Nine Reforms

Each proposal below is modeled on a statute already in force in another state. For each one, our attorneys have drafted the actual amendment language for Chapter 718 (condominiums) and Chapter 720 (homeowners’ associations). Florida would not be experimenting. It would be catching up.

1. A payment plan offer before foreclosure can be filed. Before an association may sue to foreclose, it must offer the homeowner a written plan to pay the full balance in equal monthly installments over 12 to 18 months, with the term chosen by the homeowner. If the owner declines or stops paying, the association files. If the owner is paying, the case waits. The debt is still owed and the lien stays in place. Already law in Colorado, Texas, California, Nevada, and Hawaii.
2. A payment plan option during the foreclosure case. Florida’s qualifying offer statute, on the books since 2007, already lets an HOA homeowner pause a foreclosure by promising under oath to pay the entire balance within 60 days. Almost nobody facing foreclosure has the entire balance. This reform adds a second option: the same sworn commitment, paid in equal installments over 12 to 18 months while staying current on new assessments. It also extends the protection to condominium owners, who have no version of it today. Builds on Florida’s own § 720.3085(6).
3. A minimum amount before a lien can be recorded. No lien until unpaid assessments reach $1,800 or any part of the debt is more than 12 months old. Interest, late fees, and collection charges do not count toward the threshold. Smaller debts remain collectible in court, just not with the family home as collateral. California’s standard; Georgia requires $4,000 and Arizona $10,000.
4. Email notice before a home is taken. A homeowner who opts in receives every collection and foreclosure notice by email, in addition to the required mailings, and can name a trusted person to receive copies. Associations already email owners about pool closures and gate codes. Seasonal residents, deployed servicemembers, and owners caring for family out of state should not learn about a foreclosure from the process server. Colorado requires it; Texas and Nevada permit it.
5. Mediation before a judge can order the home sold. One required mediation before summary judgment or final judgment, with interest and fees frozen while it is pending. These cases involve a debt, a home, and two parties who will remain neighbors if the account is cured. That is exactly what mediation is for. Washington enacted it statewide in 2025; Colorado requires a mediation offer before filing.
6. 180 days to get the home back after the auction. The former owner of a homestead can redeem within 180 days by paying what the buyer paid, plus interest and the buyer’s documented costs. The buyer is made completely whole. A family member, a tenant, or a nonprofit acting with the owner’s consent can redeem on the owner’s behalf. Already law in Texas and Colorado (180 days) and California (90 days).
7. Time to sell the home at market value. A homestead owner in an association foreclosure can ask the court to pause the sale for up to nine months while the home is listed and sold at market value. The association is paid in full, with interest, at closing. The owner keeps the rest. If the owner does not actually list the home or stops paying new assessments, the pause lifts. Enacted in Colorado in 2025.
8. Payments count toward the debt first. Reverse the current order: money paid goes to assessments before interest, late fees, and collection charges. Pay the debt, and the debt goes down. Already law in Texas, Colorado, and California.
9. A free, itemized ledger within 7 business days. On request, the association or its collection firm must provide a complete itemized ledger at no cost, and the total stated is binding. While the request is pending, fees stop accruing and no foreclosure can be filed. Homeowners trying to cure a delinquency deserve a straight answer to the most basic question: what do I owe? Colorado requires it in 7 business days; Nevada in 10.

What This Does Not Do

We expect the association industry to argue that these reforms starve associations of revenue. They do not, and the proposals were drafted so that argument fails on its face.

Every one of the nine leaves the debt owed, the lien valid, and the association’s right to collect intact. The payment plans pay the association one hundred cents on the dollar on a fixed schedule. The redemption and market-sale proposals pay the association in full, with interest, before the owner sees a dime. The ledger reform asks only that the association say, in writing, what it claims it is owed.

What the reforms take away is narrower: the ability to turn a small debt into a large one through fees, and the ability to take a home’s entire equity to satisfy a small judgment. An association that is actually trying to collect its assessments loses nothing. An association that profits from the collection process itself will notice the difference.

The track record elsewhere is instructive. Several of these measures passed with bipartisan or unanimous support. In 2026, Georgia’s reform cleared its Senate unanimously and was signed into law over the objection of the national association-industry trade group. Associations in those states still collect their assessments. They just do it without the leverage of a family’s home over a four-figure balance.

How You Can Help

Lawyers can draft a bill. We cannot pass one. That takes constituents.

Numbers get a bill filed. Stories get it passed. We are collecting both at pmlawfla.com/hoa-reform and intend to deliver them to members of the Florida Legislature ahead of the 2027 session, alongside the full reform proposals and draft statutory language our attorneys have prepared.

If you own a home in a Florida HOA or condominium, or you simply think a missed payment should not cost someone their house, here is what we are asking:

• Sign the petition. It takes a minute. You can support all nine reforms or pick the ones you agree with.

• Share your story. If an association’s collection practices have touched your family, a lien over a small debt, fees that outgrew the assessments, a foreclosure notice you never saw, tell us what happened. With your permission, we will put it in front of the people who can change the law. Only your first name, county, and story are shared; we will not publish your contact information.

• Pass it on. Send the page to your neighbors, your board (yes, your board), and anyone who has ever opened an envelope from a collection law firm.

Signing the petition does not create an attorney-client relationship, and we will use your information only for this effort and updates about it. You can ask us to remove your name at any time.

If You Are Facing a Lien or Foreclosure Today

This effort is about changing the law for everyone. It will not stop a case that is already running against you. If you have received a lien, a collection demand, attorney fees that keep growing, or a foreclosure complaint, deadlines are likely already in motion, and a petition will not pause them.

Request a case review or call 305-928-1077. A case review will tell you where you stand and what your options are, including the costs and risks of each. Do not submit confidential details about your own matter through the petition form.

Perez Mayoral, P.A. represents Florida homeowners and condominium unit owners in disputes with their associations, with offices across the state and our main office in Miami-Dade. We do not represent associations. Always Homeowners. Never Associations.

Attorney advertising. The proposals described in this article are proposed legislation supported by Perez Mayoral, P.A. They are not current law. Nothing in this article is legal advice or addresses your particular situation. Lien statistics are from the Benutech Data Insights 2026 report on liens recorded in 2025 and the Foundation for Community Association Research 2025 Statistical Review.