What did not change for self-managed associations

Florida has a very large number of small and mid-size self-managed associations, and for them the practical outcome is simply that nothing happened. There is no revenue threshold, no unit-count threshold and no statutory trigger obliging an association to retain a management firm. A board that has run its own community for thirty years may continue to.

The Community Associations Institute's Florida Legislative Alliance, which tracked 68 bills this session, describes the House version as having reached associations with $500,000 or more in revenue and says it negotiated Senate amendments seeking flexibility on management models while the House version stayed misaligned. That is the trade association's account of its own advocacy and should be read as such — the thresholds are not in force either way.³

The manager rules that ARE in force, because they arrived in 2025

It would be a mistake to read these failures as meaning manager regulation stood still. The 2025 act, HB 913 (Ch. 2025-175), already made substantial changes that took effect on 1 July 2025 and that many boards have not operationalised.

• A duty to verify, sitting on directors personally. Section 718.111(1) now provides that “all board members or officers of a community association that contracts with a community association manager or a community association management firm have a duty to ensure that the [manager or firm] is properly licensed before entering into a contract.” The association may terminate on written notice “effective on the date the community association manager became unlicensed.”
• A ten-year bar. Under s. 468.432(2)(h), a person whose CAM licence is revoked may not hold a direct or indirect ownership interest in, or be an employee, partner, officer, director or trustee of, a management firm for ten years, and may not reapply for ten years.
• Notice to the association, not just the firm. If a manager's licence is suspended or revoked, DBPR must give written notice to the management firm and to the community association.
• Contract language. Each management contract must carry, in 12-point font where applicable, a statement that the manager will abide by the professional standards and recordkeeping requirements of part VIII of chapter 468 — and no contract may waive or limit those standards.
• An in-person obligation. DBPR publishes, as a licensee duty, that a manager must annually attend at least one board or member meeting in person.⁴

The conflict rules that replaced what the bills would have added

Section 468.4335 now creates a rebuttable presumption of a manager conflict of interest where, without prior notice to the board, the manager or firm proposes or enters a contract with the association for services other than management, or “holds an interest in or receives compensation from” a person doing or proposing to do business with the association. “Compensation” is defined to capture “any referral fee or other monetary benefit,” plus ownership interests and profit-sharing arrangements with providers recommended to the association.

Two mechanics matter operationally. Where the association considers a bid exceeding $2,500 for a non-management good or service that is or may reasonably be construed to be such a conflict, “the association must solicit multiple bids from other third-party providers.” And if the board finds a violation, the management contract is voidable and terminable by written notice — HB 913 removed the old requirement to first obtain the consent of 20 percent of the voting interests.

A deadline three weeks out

The item with a date on it is not legislative. The current CAM biennial licence cycle runs 1 October 2024 to 30 September 2026. Under Rule 61E14-4.001, F.A.C., a manager needs 15 hours of continuing education for the cycle — three hours each of legal update, insurance and financial management, property operations, human resources, and elective. Managers serving homeowners' associations must additionally complete “a minimum of 5 hours… that pertains specifically to homeowners associations, 3 hours of which must relate to recordkeeping.”⁵

This is the first cycle in which those HOA-specific hours are enforceable, and it closes in three weeks. A board whose manager's licence lapses on 1 October inherits the verification problem described above — and DBPR's pending citation rule proposes a penalty line item for failure to contract with a licensed manager or firm.