One right has no deadline at all. The other ratifies by default in 18 months. Know which is which.
✓ Condo management contracts: 75% of non-developer votes
✓ That right has no deadline
✓ Purchase and lease obligations: 18 months or ratified
✓ HOAs: no cancellation right under s. 720.309
STEP 1
We meet your board
We start with a discovery session to understand your size, needs, and goals. We review past records, current systems, and any lingering messes you want cleaned up.
STEP 2
We Onboard Your Books
We don’t just plug in data. We get everything in sync. That means full reconciliations, setup of vendor and dues tracking, and a financial calendar tailored to your schedule.
STEP 3
We Deliver Every Month
You’ll get board-ready financials on a predictable rhythm, complete with reconciliation notes, variance summaries, and report context. No chasing. No guessing. Always accountable.
STEP 4
We Keep You Compliant
Deadlines, filings, vendor records, audit prep — we make sure your board stays ahead of what matters most. When tax time comes, it’s an easy process because we’ve kept the finances in order.
Developer-era contract review for Florida boards
Two different rights sit in the same statute and get confused constantly. One has no deadline and can wait. The other ratifies by default eighteen months after handover, and once it does there is nothing to vote on.
Ledgerly inventories every contract the association inherited, flags which regime each one falls under, and puts the 18-month date on the board's calendar in the first month rather than the last.
Condominiums: two regimes in one section
Section 718.302 contains two entirely different mechanisms and they are constantly conflated. Different subject matter, different vote thresholds, different deadlines, opposite defaults.
| s. 718.302(1) — management | s. 718.302(2) — purchase/lease | |
|---|---|---|
| Covers | Grants, reservations and contracts for operation, maintenance or management of the association or property serving owners | Grants, reservations and contracts requiring the association to purchase condominium property, or to lease it to another party |
| Vote | 75% of voting interests other than the developer's | Majority of voting interests other than the developer's |
| Deadline | None | 18 months after owners elect a board majority |
| Default if no vote | Contract continues | Deemed ratified |
The 18-month provision is the only true deadline in the section, and because the default is ratification, missing it is fatal in a way that inaction under subsection (1) is not. Recreational leases and land-lease structures are the classic subject matter.
Who votes, and why the denominator matters again
Every threshold in s. 718.302 is expressed as a percentage of the voting interests other than the voting interests owned by the developer. Developer-held interests come out of both the numerator and the denominator. Describing this as "75% of all owners" is the most common error on the topic and it makes the vote look far harder than it is.
The four cancellation scenarios
- (a) Single condominium. Where owners have assumed control, or where non-developer owners hold at least 75% of the voting interests, cancellation is by 75% of the non-developer voting interests. Note this can be exercised before turnover.
- (b) Multiple condominiums, control not yet assumed. Where non-developer owners hold at least 75% across the condominiums the association operates, contracts for maintenance, management or operation of the buildings containing that condominium's units, or of improvements used only by that condominium's owners, may be cancelled by 75% of that condominium's non-developer voting interests.
- (c) Multiple condominiums, control assumed. By 75% of the total non-developer voting interests across all condominiums the association operates.
- (d) Shared property served by more than one association. Cannot be cancelled until owners have assumed control of all of the associations served, after which 75% of the non-developer voting interests across those condominiums applies. This is the carve-out that keeps a shared recreational facility from being cancelled by one association acting alone.
Since July 1, 2025 there is a variant threshold of 90% for nonresidential condominiums of ten or fewer units. It is not a general alternative — it applies only to that narrow category.
Two more provisions worth knowing
Contracts and grants made before owners assumed control must be fair and reasonable, independent of any cancellation vote. And escalation clauses in condominium management contracts are void as against public policy — defined as any clause providing that the fee increases at the same percentage rate as a nationally recognized and conveniently available commodity or consumer price index. If your developer-era management agreement has a CPI escalator, it is unenforceable.
Enforcement runs through s. 718.302(6): an action to compel compliance with s. 718.302 or s. 718.301 may be brought under the summary procedure in s. 51.011.
Homeowners' associations: there is no cancellation right
This is the finding most likely to surprise a board, because s. 720.309 carries the same section title as the condominium provision — "Agreements entered into by the association" — and does something entirely different.
Section 720.309(1) imposes only a substantive standard: any grant or reservation made by any document, and any contract that has a term greater than 10 years, made by an association before turnover and providing for operation, maintenance or management of the association or common areas, must be fair and reasonable. No vote threshold. No time window. No cancellation mechanism.
Two asymmetries against Chapter 718 follow. The HOA fairness standard reaches contracts only if the term exceeds ten years, where the condominium provision applies to any pre-turnover management contract regardless of term. And the only remedy is a judicial challenge that the contract is not fair and reasonable, brought under s. 720.305(1) with prevailing-party fees — not a member vote.
What HOA boards can use instead
- Director-interested contracts, s. 720.3033(2)(d). Where the association contracts with a director, or an entity a director is involved in or financially interested in, the board must follow the disclosure and approval process, and at the next members' meeting any member may move to bring the contract to a vote. It may be cancelled by a majority of the members present, and the association is then liable only for the reasonable value of goods and services provided up to cancellation — no termination fee, liquidated damages or penalty.
- Conflict disclosure timing, s. 720.3033(6). Directors and officers must disclose any activity that may reasonably be construed as a conflict at least 14 days before voting on it or entering the contract. Developer-appointed directors must disclose their relationship to the developer each year — though the statute is explicit that appointment alone creates no presumption of conflict.
- Void document clauses, s. 720.3075. Any clause giving the developer unilateral power to amend the governing documents after turnover, or entitling it post-turnover to cast votes exceeding one per residential lot, is null and void as against public policy. So is any clause barring the association from suing the developer. And the developer's pre-turnover amendment power is subject to a reasonableness test that prohibits amendments that are arbitrary, capricious or in bad faith, destroy the general plan of development, prejudice existing owners' use of common property, or materially shift economic burdens from the developer to existing owners.
- Recreational leases, s. 720.31. Pre-turnover recreational leases must give the association a right of first refusal, with 90 days to meet the price and terms. Escalation clauses in such leases are void as against public policy.
Condominium conflict contracts have a much lower bar
Worth knowing because it is far easier to reach than 75%. Under s. 718.3027(5), a contract between the association and a director or officer, or a relative of one, that was not properly disclosed as a conflict is voidable and terminates upon filing a written notice of termination with the board containing the consent of at least 20 percent of the voting interests. "Relative" means within the third degree of consanguinity by blood or marriage.
Chapter 720 has no equivalent voidability provision — the words "void" and "voidable" do not appear in s. 720.3033 at all. That gap is real and is worth naming.
A bidding threshold that differs between the chapters
Going forward, competitive bidding is required where payment under a contract exceeds a share of the total annual budget including reserves — 5 percent for condominiums under s. 718.3026, and 10 percent for HOAs under s. 720.3055. The two figures are routinely conflated. Chapter 720 also exempts contracts executed before October 1, 2004 and their renewals, and permits a manager contract awarded by competitive bid to run up to three years.
Where this fits
This page covers one stage of the handover. The full sequence, with the before-and-after board checklist, is on the pillar: Developer to owner control: the complete Florida transition guide for boards.
Related pages in this series
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