Florida Statute 718.111: Duties, Insurance, and Inspections

Florida Statute 718.111 is the core provision of the Condominium Act that defines a condominium association: how it must be organized, what powers it holds, what duties its officers owe unit owners, and what records, insurance, and financial reporting it must keep. If you own a Florida condo or sit on a board, this is the section that answers most questions about what the association can do to you and what you can demand from it.

How the Association Must Be Organized

Every Florida condominium must be operated by an association organized as a Florida corporation, whether for-profit or not-for-profit.¹ Owning a unit automatically makes you a shareholder or member of that corporation. The association is governed by the Condominium Act, its own declaration and bylaws, and the Florida Not For Profit Corporation Act working together.

Fiduciary Duty of Officers and Directors

Officers and directors have a fiduciary relationship to unit owners. They must act in good faith, exercise reasonable care, and put the association’s interests ahead of their own.¹ A director or officer who breaches that duty can face personal monetary liability when the breach involves criminal conduct, an improper personal benefit, or reckless or bad-faith behavior.

The statute takes a hard line on corruption. Any officer, director, or manager who solicits or accepts a kickback commits a third-degree felony, must be removed from office, and faces civil penalties in addition to criminal prosecution. Forging a ballot envelope in an association election is prosecuted as forgery. Embezzling association funds is prosecuted as theft. Destroying or refusing to produce records owners are entitled to inspect can be charged as tampering with evidence or obstruction of justice.¹

What the Association Has the Power to Do

The association’s authority runs broad. It can enter contracts for goods and services, hire and fire employees, and file or defend lawsuits in its own name.¹ It can acquire and hold real or personal property for the benefit of members, including buying a unit at its own foreclosure sale on unpaid assessments.

The most consequential day-to-day power is the authority to levy and collect assessments to fund operations, maintenance, and reserves. What the association cannot do is charge a use fee for common elements. That kind of fee is off-limits unless the declaration specifically allows it, a majority of owners vote to approve it, or the charge covers a common element that one owner uses exclusively.¹

Right of Access to Your Unit

The association has an irrevocable right to enter your unit during reasonable hours when it needs to maintain or repair common elements, work on any portion of the unit the association is obligated to maintain, or prevent damage to common elements or other units.¹ You cannot refuse entry when the access falls into one of those categories and happens at a reasonable time.

Maintenance Boundary

The association maintains, repairs, and replaces all common elements and association property: roofs, exterior walls, structural components, waterproofing, and shared amenities, typically. Your declaration draws the exact line between association and owner responsibility, but as a general rule anything inside the unit’s interior boundaries that serves only that unit is the owner’s problem. When no insurable event triggers coverage, the declaration and bylaws control who pays for repair or reconstruction.

Insurance the Association Must Carry

The association must carry adequate property insurance covering the common elements and building structure. The policy has to provide primary coverage on the property as originally installed, or a like-kind replacement, including any alterations or additions made to association property. The coverage amount is based on replacement cost, determined by an independent insurance appraisal at least once every three years.¹

The master policy is required to exclude items that are the unit owner’s responsibility to insure. Those exclusions cover personal property inside the unit or limited common elements, plus floor, wall, and ceiling coverings, electrical fixtures, appliances, water heaters, water filters, built-in cabinets and countertops, and window treatments such as curtains, drapes, and blinds, when those items sit within the unit’s boundaries and serve only that unit.¹ Owners cover these with an HO-6 policy.

Who Pays the Deductible

Deductibles on the master policy and any damage exceeding policy limits are a common expense of the whole condominium, shared through assessments. One exception matters: if a unit owner, family member, tenant, or guest causes the damage through intentional conduct, negligence, or failure to follow the declaration or association rules, that owner bears the repair costs not covered by insurance.¹ An association, or an individual condominium within a multi-condominium association, can opt out of this default by a majority vote of the total voting interests, and then the declaration controls how costs are divided.

Your Right to Inspect Association Records

The association must keep a full set of official records. Accounting records, meeting minutes, the declaration, bylaws, and articles of incorporation are permanent, kept from the association’s inception. Bids for work, materials, or services stay on file for at least one year. Everything else classified as an official record must be maintained within Florida for at least seven years.¹

You or an authorized representative can request to inspect and copy those records by submitting a written request, and the association cannot ask why you want to see them. If the association fails to produce them within 10 working days, the law creates a rebuttable presumption that the failure was willful. An owner denied access can recover actual damages or minimum statutory damages of $50 per calendar day, starting on the 11th working day after the request.¹ The association can set reasonable rules about when and where inspections happen. It cannot use procedure to stall you.

What the Association Can Withhold

Some records are exempt from owner inspection:

Attorney-client privileged materials reflecting legal strategies, conclusions, or theories prepared for litigation or adversarial proceedings, until those proceedings end.
Records obtained in connection with approving a lease, sale, or other transfer of a unit.
Employee personnel records, including disciplinary actions, payroll details, health records, and insurance information. Written employment agreements and compensation shown in budgetary records are not protected.
Medical records of unit owners.
Personal identifying information such as Social Security numbers, driver license numbers, credit card numbers, email addresses, phone numbers, and emergency contacts. Names, unit designations, mailing addresses, and property addresses remain accessible.
Electronic security measures like passwords used to protect association data.
Association software and operating systems, though the data stored in them is still part of the official records.

The association can publish a directory listing each owner’s name, unit address, and phone numbers, but any owner may opt out of having their phone number included by submitting a written request.¹

Financial Reporting Owners Get to See

The level of financial scrutiny an association faces scales with its annual revenue:¹

$500,000 or more in annual revenue: full audited financial statements prepared by a CPA.
$300,000 to $499,999: reviewed financial statements.
$150,000 to $299,999: compiled financial statements.

Associations below $150,000 in revenue must prepare a report of cash receipts and expenditures. A majority of unit owners can vote to waive the statutory level of reporting, in person or by proxy. Going the other direction, if at least 20 percent of owners petition the board, the membership can vote to require a higher level than the statute sets, and the board can demand a higher-level report on its own.

The Annual Budget

The board must adopt the annual budget at least 14 days before the new fiscal year begins. If the proposed budget raises assessments more than 15 percent above the prior year, the board must simultaneously propose a substitute budget stripping out discretionary expenses. Reserve accounts are required for roof replacement, building painting, pavement resurfacing, and any other deferred maintenance or capital items expected to exceed a cost threshold set by the Division of Condominiums. Owners can vote to waive or reduce reserves for non-structural items, but only for one budget year at a time, general proxies cannot be used, and the developer cannot participate in that vote before turnover of control.²

Structural Safety Obligations After Surfside

After the 2021 Surfside collapse, Florida added structural safety duties that now sit alongside the association’s other 718.111 responsibilities. Two apply to most multi-story condo buildings.

Milestone Inspections

A condominium building three or more habitable stories tall must undergo a milestone structural inspection by December 31 of the year it reaches 30 years of age, measured from its certificate of occupancy date, and every 10 years after.³ Local building officials can shorten that to 25 years for buildings near salt water. Buildings with four or fewer dwelling units and three or fewer habitable stories above ground are exempt. The association must retain the inspection report in its official records for at least 15 years, and renters have the right to view it.⁴

Structural Integrity Reserve Studies

Buildings three or more habitable stories tall must also complete a structural integrity reserve study at least every 10 years, evaluating remaining useful life and replacement cost for eight components:

Roof systems
Load-bearing walls and primary structural members
Fireproofing and fire protection systems
Plumbing systems
Electrical systems
Waterproofing and exterior painting
Windows and exterior doors
Any other item costing more than $25,000 whose failure would affect one of the above

Reserves for these eight components cannot be waived by an owner vote. Before the post-Surfside reforms, associations routinely voted to underfund or skip reserves. That option is gone for structural items. For budgets adopted after December 31, 2024, these reserve funds must also be tracked separately and used only for their designated components.

How Disputes Get Resolved

Most condominium disputes have to go through either nonbinding arbitration or presuit mediation before anyone can file suit. This applies to disagreements about board authority over unit owners, election procedures, meeting notice requirements, and access to records, among others.⁵

Some categories skip that step and go straight to court: title disputes, warranty claims, assessment collection actions, tenant evictions, breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims against directors, and claims for unit damage based on the association’s alleged failure to maintain common elements.

The Office of the Condominium Ombudsman, housed within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, is a neutral resource for owners and boards. It does not take sides, but it facilitates voluntary meetings, monitors election procedures, and can recommend enforcement action when election rules are violated.⁶ If at least 15 percent of an association’s total voting interests, or six owners, whichever is greater, petition for an election monitor, the Ombudsman can appoint one at the association’s expense.

What 718.111 Does Not Cover

Fines and rule enforcement against owners are governed by Section 718.303, not 718.111. Unpaid-assessment liens and foreclosure procedures live in Section 718.116. If your question is about a fine, a suspension of use rights, or how the association collects on an assessment balance, the answer is in one of those sections rather than in 718.111 itself.

1
Online Sunshine. Florida Code 718.111 – The Association
2
Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Budgets and Reserve Schedules
3
Florida Senate. Florida Code 553.899 – Mandatory Structural Inspections for Condominium and Cooperative Buildings
4
Florida Senate. Florida SB 4-D
5
Florida Senate. Florida Code 718.1255 – Alternative Dispute Resolution Voluntary Mediation Mandatory Nonbinding Arbitration
6
Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Condominium Ombudsman