Condominium association

Florida Statutes 720.302(4) takes any association subject to regulation under Chapter 718, or under two other chapters it lists, out of Chapter 720, apart from provisions expressly incorporated. Chapter 718 is the condominium chapter, so a condominium association and a homeowners association answer to different statutes even when both are simply called the association.

The ownership underneath differs too. Under 718.103(12), a condominium is a form of ownership made up entirely of units, each carrying an undivided share in the common elements, and 718.103(32) makes a unit owner the record owner of legal title to a condominium parcel. The chapter as a whole is described under Chapter 718.

A condominium association acts through its board. Florida Statutes 718.103(5) defines the board of administration as the board of directors or other representative body responsible for administering the association.

Section 718.111(3)(a) gives the association the capacity to act for the building: it “may contract, sue, or be sued with respect to the exercise or nonexercise of its powers”, and those powers include “the maintenance, management, and operation of the condominium property”. Under 718.111(2), its powers and duties also include those in the declaration and bylaws, except as Chapter 718 limits them.

That contracting power is how a board can bring in outside help, from a property manager who runs the building day to day to the trades that clean or repair it. Which surfaces a given association maintains is set by 718.113(1) and the declaration, and the roof version of that question is taken up in who is responsible for roof cleaning in a condo. Whether the work can happen at all is a separate page, can a condo roof be cleaned.

Where an association's notice gives an owner time to fix a violation, that time goes by the everyday name cure period, and how long a particular notice allows is written in that notice. What Chapter 718 itself requires before a fine, in 718.303(3)(b), is at least 14 days' written notice and an opportunity for a hearing.

Chapter 718 also puts an insurance duty on the association itself. Florida Statutes 718.111(11)(a) reads: “Every condominium association shall have adequate property insurance as determined under this paragraph, regardless of any requirement in the declaration of condominium for certain coverage by the association.”

That duty holds whatever the declaration says about coverage, and the policy it produces is the association's, separate from any policy a unit owner buys. Florida's notice statute for residential property policies, 627.4133(2), lists condominium association and condominium unit owner policies as distinct policy types.

What either policy covers, and where one ends and the other begins, is written in the policies themselves. The association and its insurance agent answer for the association's policy, and a unit owner's own insurer answers for the owner's.