The provision that needed no vote at all

Buried in Section 1 was a mechanism that operated without any membership vote. A created s. 712.13(3)(a) would have provided that “upon the dissolution of a homeowners' association, the governing documents of the association, which were recorded in the official records of a county and created solely for the operation or benefit of the dissolved association or its members, are deemed terminated and are unenforceable.”

That was automatic on dissolution, whether voluntary or involuntary, and it applied both prospectively and retroactively — to associations dissolved before, on, or after 1 July 2026. The clerk would have marked the records terminated and inactive on receipt of a certified copy of the articles of dissolution. For any Florida community whose association had already lapsed administratively, this was the provision that mattered most.

Pre-suit mediation would have been replaced, not merely trimmed

Section 16 struck the entire pre-suit mediation apparatus from s. 720.311: the mandatory mediation demand for covenant-enforcement, use, document-amendment, meeting and official-records disputes; the service, 20-day response, cost-sharing, impasse and fee-shifting mechanics; the multi-page statutory offer form; and the provision letting voluntary associations use the procedures.

What survived was renumbered and converted to arbitration, with the fee shift softened from a mandatory entitlement to a permissive one — the prevailing party “may” rather than “shall be entitled to” seek recovery of costs and fees. New language required that “the arbitration proceeding must be conducted by a department arbitrator or by a private arbitrator certified by the department,” and mediator certification was dropped from the statute entirely.

None of that happened. Pre-suit mediation obligations under s. 720.311 are exactly what they were before the session. An owner or association that deferred a covenant dispute expecting the requirement to disappear should assume it still applies.

Four other changes that also failed

Conflicts of interest. A new s. 720.303(11) would have required an HOA director, officer or committee member with a direct or indirect financial interest to disclose it in writing before any discussion or vote, barred them from participating, made a conflicted transaction voidable absent approval by a majority of voting interests after full disclosure, and provided that the subsection “may not be waived or limited by the governing documents.”

Law-enforcement records requests. A new s. 718.111(12)(c)6 would have required a condominium association served with a subpoena or written request from a law enforcement or prosecuting agency to produce records “within 5 business days after receipt,” with willful and knowing failure a second-degree misdemeanour.

Turnover inspection reports. Section 5 would have struck the height qualifier from s. 718.112(2)(g)6, so a developer needed a turnover inspection report for each building, not only those three stories or higher.

Roofing materials. Two provisions would have barred an HOA or its architectural committee from requiring “that a specific type of material be used on the building or rebuilding of a roof,” conditioned on the result appearing “substantially identical in shape and color” to the association's requirements and the materials meeting ASCE 7-22 standards.

What to watch before the 2027 session

As of today Rep. Porras has filed nothing for 2027 — the Florida House's own sponsored-bills page for him returns “No first named sponsored bills for the selected session.”⁴ He has publicly called HOAs a “failed experiment,” and trade reporting has him hoping to revive the bill, but intent is not a filing.

The calendar matters more than the rhetoric. The 2027 Regular Session convenes 2 March 2027, and the Senate deadline for filing bills is noon that same day. Interim committee weeks — where this kind of bill is actually shaped — do not begin until the week of 30 November 2026. Anyone who wants this framework revived is lobbying now, before drafts exist, not in February.

One structural note worth keeping in view: the bill's Senate companion, CS/SB 1498, carried Sen. Jim Boyd as a co-introducer. Boyd takes the Senate presidency at the November 2026 organisation session. That is a fact about co-sponsorship, not a prediction — his stated leadership priorities on designation do not mention community associations.