Changing Priorities
legislative lens
2026 Legislative Session:
Changing Priorities
Prepared by CAI Florida Legislative Alliance
Community Associations Institute( CAI) Florida Legislative Alliance( FLA) spent the 2026 legislative session advocating on behalf of the approximately 9,524,000 Floridians living in 3,884,400 homes in more than 49,800 community associations across the Sunshine State.
n Legislative Overview
Florida’ s legislative session began on January 13 and adjourned on March 13, 2026. FlA tracked 68 bills of relevance across both chambers. Bill effective dates are typically written into the legislation, although they are typically either January 1 or July 1 of the following year. legislation that is not passed is not carried over from one year to the next.
n 2026 Key Bills of Interest to Community Associations in Florida
Below is a brief overview of highlights from the 2026 Florida legislative Session.
CAI OPPOSED THE BELOW BILL
CAI lACs oppose legislation that is at odds with CAI’ s public policy positions. If a lAC believes it may need to consider or adopt any legislative or regulatory position that would be in conflict with these official positions, it must submit a request for a deviation to be considered by CAI’ s government and Public
Affairs Committee and / or Board of Trustees.
HB 657 Community Associations
FlA opposed this bill when it was first introduced, as it would have created a regulatory environment that would have opened the door to the type of chaotic mismanagement that legislators purported to prevent. CAI-FlA suggested changes that would have fixed many of the issues in the legislation but they were not made by the bill Sponsor.
HB 657 would have created challenges for community associations, which would have led to unintended consequences for association governance, financial stability, and day-to-day operations. The bill made sweeping changes to association termination rules, meeting procedures, board rules and responsibilities, dispute resolution, and governing document amendment procedures.
Under HB 657, an association would have governing documents amended with a minority vote of owners and could see associations terminated just with the petition of 20 % of residents. The instability these provisions would cause cannot be understated— associations across the state could have rules rewritten or be dissolved altogether by a small group of disgruntled residents with no way for other homeowners to stop the process. his bill also would have created a community association court to decide on disputes. In practice, this would mean another layer of bureaucracy for associations to navigate, and another opportunity for the state to interfere in internal community matters.
A grassroots call to action email campaign, which encouraged advocates to send a message to legislators opposing the bill, was launched by CAI to support FlA’ s advocacy efforts. In total, 399 advocates sent messages to 94 different legislators across both chambers.
• Status: Passed in the house, Died in Senate Committee
CAI SOUGHT AMENDMENTS TO THE BELOW BILLS
CAI works with legislators to champion amendments to legislation to help the language better align with CAI’ s public policy positions on any given topic impacting the community association industry.
HB 465 / SB 822 Community Association Management
FlA actively engaged with legislators prior to and after the initial filing of this bill to ensure it reflects the full range of professional management models used across Florida. Our focus has been on pursuing targeted amendments, so the legislation worked in practice for professionally managed communities, including those utilizing direct-hire on-site management and other operational structures.
As originally filed, the bill would have required community associations in Florida with annual revenues of $ 500,000 or more to contract with a community association management firm. As the bill evolved, FlA was able to collaborate successfully with the Senate to amend SB
14 community • June 2026 WWW. CAIWESTFlORIDA. ORg