Community association manager

Florida Statutes 468.431(4) defines a community association manager as “a natural person who is licensed pursuant to this part to perform community association management services.”

Two phrases in that sentence do most of the work. Natural person means a human being, so a corporation, a partnership or any other organization cannot itself be a community association manager. Pursuant to this part ties the title to Chapter 468 Part VIII, the part of Florida law on community association management, rather than to a job description or a business card.

Because the definition turns on a license under that part, the statute's term names a person who holds that license, not a job description. Whether a particular individual holds it is not something a definition can answer. The organizations that do business in this field have a defined term of their own, set out further down.

Section 468.431(2) defines community association management as practices “requiring substantial specialized knowledge, judgment, and managerial skill” done for pay, where the association or associations served contain more than 10 units or have an annual budget above a threshold the subsection sets. The subsection's list is longer than this; among the practices it names:

• Controlling or disbursing a community association's funds.
• Preparing budgets or other financial documents for the association.
• Assisting in the noticing or conduct of association meetings.
• Negotiating the terms of a contract, subject to approval by the association.
• Drafting prearbitration demands.
• “Coordinating or performing maintenance for real or personal property and other related routine services involved in the operation of a community association.”
• Complying with the association's governing documents and the law as needed to perform those practices.

The associations served are defined in 468.431(1): a residential homeowners' association in which membership is a condition of owning a unit in a planned unit development, a lot for a home or mobile home, or a townhouse, villa, condominium, cooperative or other residential unit, and which may impose a fee that may become a lien. That list runs from a single-family lot to a condominium unit, so the title can attach to the manager of a homeowners association or of a condominium association.

The maintenance line is where the title meets a roof, a driveway or a window. Coordinating maintenance is on the list, but the list does not say which work counts as maintenance, and no section of Chapter 720 or Chapter 718 cited here names roof cleaning, paver sealing or window cleaning. In a homeowners' community, what counts is set by the declaration of covenants and its published guidelines; in a condominium, 718.113(1) makes maintenance of the common elements the association's responsibility, “except for any maintenance responsibility for limited common elements assigned to the unit owner by the declaration.”

The same subsection says who is not required to be licensed under Part VIII. A person who performs clerical or ministerial functions under the direct supervision and control of a licensed manager is one; the other is a person “who is charged only with performing the maintenance of a community association and who does not assist in any of the management services described in this subsection.”

Read side by side, the two sentences draw a narrow line. Coordinating or performing maintenance appears in the definition of management, yet a person whose only charge is performing maintenance, with no part in the listed management services, falls outside the Part VIII requirement. What separates the two is whether the person also takes part in the management practices on the list.

The everyday title property manager is not defined in 468.431, 720.301 or 718.103, so the title alone says nothing about whether a person is a community association manager; licensing questions go back to the 468.431 definitions.

Section 468.431(3) defines a community association management firm as “a corporation, limited liability company, partnership, trust, association, sole proprietorship, or other similar organization engaging in the business of community association management” for the purpose of providing the services in subsection (2).

Subsections (3) and (4) keep the business and the individual apart. An organization can be a community association management firm, but only a natural person fits the definition of a community association manager, so a firm and the manager who performs the listed work under its name are two different things in the statute's terms.

Who holds the title is a different question from who orders exterior work. For a roof, that second question is taken up in who is responsible for roof cleaning in a condo, and for glass in who cleans exterior windows in a condo.