Condominiums run on working days. Homeowners' associations run on business days. The statutes really do differ.
✓ Condo: 10 working days. HOA: 10 business days
✓ Damages of $50 per calendar day, capped at $500
✓ Owners may photograph records free of charge
✓ Website posting now live for 25+ unit condos
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.
Records management and website compliance for Florida associations
Records disputes rarely start as records disputes. They start as an assessment argument, or a contested election, and the records request is the instrument. By the time a board is counting days it is usually already in a posture where the $500 is the least of the exposure and the attorney fee provision is the point.
Ledgerly maintains association records in the organized, indexed form the statute now requires, runs the redaction pass before anything is posted or produced, and operates the owner-portal side of the website obligation — including the 30-day posting rule that applies to condominium records created or received after the 2025 amendments. Requests are logged on receipt with the correct clock attached, which is the part that decides whether a presumption of willful failure ever attaches.
7 things Florida boards should know about official records
- 1
Condominium records have three retention tiers, not one
Permanent for the foundational documents — plans, permits and warranties, the declaration, the bylaws, the articles, current rules, and minutes. Fifteen years for structural integrity reserve studies and milestone and inspection reports. Seven years for everything else, and Chapter 718 requires those to be maintained within the state. One year for bids and for ballots, sign-in sheets and proxies.
- 2
HOA retention is flatter, and has no in-state requirement
Chapter 720 uses seven years generally, unless the governing documents require longer, with one year for bids and for ballots, sign-in sheets and proxies. There is no permanent tier and no requirement to keep records in Florida. Since 2024, HOAs must also adopt written rules governing their records retention method.
- 3
Condominiums must hand over a checklist with the records
Under s. 718.111(12)(c)1.b., when a written request is made the association must simultaneously provide the requestor a checklist of all records made available for inspection and copying, and must keep that checklist for seven years. Added in 2024. We found no equivalent requirement in Chapter 720.
- 4
Video recordings of meetings are now records with their own clock
The 2025 session added video-conference recordings to the condominium official records, with at least one year of retention after posting — and recordings of meetings for which no approved minutes exist must be kept permanently. Recordings or hyperlinks to them for the preceding 12 months also have to be on the website.
- 5
Condominium records must now be posted within 30 days of creation or receipt
The 2025 amendments require official records to be posted to the website or made available on the app within 30 days after the association receives or creates the record, unless a shorter timeframe applies. Meeting notices and agendas run to shorter clocks — 14 days before a members' meeting, with documents to be considered posted at least 7 days before. There is no equivalent 30-day rule in Chapter 720.
- 6
Redact before you post, and the safe harbour is narrow
Protected information must be redacted before documents go on the website. Both chapters give the association a safe harbour from liability for disclosure — but only where the disclosure was not made "with a knowing or intentional disregard of the protected or restricted nature of such information." A bulk upload of unredacted PDFs is exactly the fact pattern that provision does not cover.
- 7
Failing to post does not invalidate what the board did
The condominium statute says so directly: failure to post required information "is not in and of itself sufficient to invalidate any action or decision of the association's board." Useful to know when an owner argues a budget is void because it went up late. It does not make the failure costless — it just is not a validity defect.
Frequently asked questions — official records
How long do we have to produce records?
It depends which chapter you are under, and the difference is in the statutory text rather than a drafting accident.
Condominiums: 10 working days after receipt of a written request, under s. 718.111(12)(c)1. Homeowners' associations: 10 business days, under s. 720.303(5)(a). DBPR's own FAQ and its official-records guidance both use "working days" for condominiums and cooperatives.
Most published guidance says "10 business days" for both. For a condominium that is wrong, and it matters because the damages clock starts on the eleventh day.
Records must be made available within 45 miles of the property or within the county where the property is located — a rule that does not apply to timeshare condominiums. Both chapters also let an association satisfy the obligation electronically, by making records available over the internet or viewable on a screen with printing on request.
What does it cost us if we are late?
Failure to provide access within the statutory window creates a rebuttable presumption that the association willfully failed to comply. The owner may recover actual damages or minimum damages, and minimum damages are $50 per calendar day for up to 10 days — a $500 ceiling — beginning on the eleventh working day for condominiums or the eleventh business day for HOAs. The prevailing party recovers reasonable attorney fees, which is where the real money is.
Note the drafting quirk: the trigger is counted in working or business days, but damages accrue per calendar day. Weekends count once the clock has started.
Can a board member go to jail over records?
In defined circumstances, yes, and the provisions are relatively recent.
A second-degree misdemeanor for a director, board member, officer or community association manager who knowingly, willfully and repeatedly violates the inspection provisions with intent to cause harm — "repeatedly" meaning two or more violations within a 12-month period. A first-degree misdemeanor for knowingly and intentionally defacing or destroying accounting records, or knowingly or intentionally failing to create or maintain them, with intent to cause harm. A third-degree felony for willfully and knowingly refusing to release or produce records with intent to avoid or escape detection, arrest, trial or punishment for a crime.
A director charged with any of these is removed from office. For condominiums, the 2025 session loosened the intent standard for certain records-denial conduct, so a single incident can support a charge in circumstances that previously required a pattern.
What are we not allowed to hand over?
Both chapters protect a defined list, and disclosing protected material is its own problem.
Common to both: attorney-client privileged records and work product prepared for actual or anticipated litigation; information obtained in connection with approval of a lease, sale or transfer; personnel records of association or management-company employees, including disciplinary, payroll, health and insurance records; medical records of owners; personal identifying information including social security and driver license numbers, credit card numbers, email addresses, telephone numbers and emergency contacts; electronic security measures including passwords; and software and operating systems that allow data manipulation.
Chapter 720 adds one with no condominium equivalent: information obtained in a gated community in connection with guests' visits to owners or occupants.
What stays accessible: written employment agreements and budgetary or compensation information for association employees; and the owner's name, unit or parcel designation, mailing address, property address, and any address designated for receiving notice. The data in a proprietary system remains accessible even though the software does not.
Can owners just photograph everything?
Yes, and you cannot charge them for it. Both chapters require the association to allow a member or authorized representative to use a portable device — smartphone, tablet, portable scanner, or other technology capable of scanning or photographing — to make an electronic copy in lieu of the association providing copies, and the association may not charge for use of a portable device.
For HOA copies the association provides: if a photocopier is available where the records are kept and the request is for 25 pages or fewer, copies must be provided during the inspection at no charge. Beyond that, up to 25 cents per page, or actual cost where an outside vendor is used, plus a personnel charge not exceeding $20 per hour and only where retrieval and copying take more than 30 minutes.
Do we have to have a website now?
If you are a condominium association managing a condominium with 25 or more units, excluding timeshare units — yes, since January 1, 2026. The threshold was lowered from 150 units by HB 1021 in 2024. The obligation can be met with an independent website or web portal, or through an app that can be downloaded on a mobile device.
If you are a homeowners' association with 100 or more parcels — yes, since January 1, 2025, under s. 720.303(4)(b), created by HB 1203 in 2024. HOAs with fewer than 100 parcels are not subject to it.
Both require a protected area inaccessible to the general public and accessible only to owners and association employees, with a username and password provided to an owner on written request. Meeting notices are the exception — those are posted where they are conspicuously visible.
Quick answers for Florida boards and owners
What must a condominium post on its website?
The recorded declaration and amendments, recorded bylaws and amendments, articles of incorporation and amendments, current rules, approved board minutes from the preceding 12 months, video recordings or hyperlinks for video-conference meetings from the preceding 12 months, a list of executory contracts plus summaries of bids over $500 received in the past year, the annual budget and any proposed budget, the annual financial report and monthly income and expense statements, director certifications, contracts or transactions in which a director has a financial interest, conflict-of-interest notices, meeting notices and agendas, milestone and life-safety inspection reports, the structural integrity reserve study, building permits for ongoing or planned construction, and all affidavits required under Chapter 718.
What must an HOA post?
The articles and amendments, recorded bylaws and amendments, declaration of covenants and amendments, current rules, a list of executory contracts plus bids received in the past year, the annual budget and any proposed budget, the annual financial report and monthly income and expense statements, current insurance policies, director certifications, contracts or transactions in which a director has a financial interest, conflict-of-interest notices, and meeting notices and agendas.
Are cooperatives covered?
Yes, under a parallel provision at s. 719.104(2), and DBPR applies the working-day standard to cooperatives alongside condominiums.
Can we charge for answering questions that are not records requests?
For condominiums, s. 718.111(12)(e) permits a reasonable fee to a prospective purchaser, lienholder or current owner for good-faith responses to requests for information not required by law, capped at $150 plus reasonable photocopying costs and any attorney fees incurred. Do not conflate this with the records inspection right — they are separate, and charging a records requester under this provision is a fast route to a dispute.
How organized do the records have to be?
Chapter 718 requires records to be maintained "in an organized manner that facilitates the inspection of the records," and requires a good-faith effort to obtain or recover lost or destroyed records. Both were added in 2024. "We have it somewhere" stopped being an answer.
Did anything change in 2026?
No. HB 657 would have revised the official records provisions in both chapters and created community association court programs. It passed the House 108–2 on March 5, 2026 and died in Senate Rules on March 13. HB 797 rewrote the Not For Profit Corporation Act effective July 1, 2026 and applies to associations as nonprofit corporations, but it does not amend s. 718.111(12) or s. 720.303.
The Truth Is
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Other platforms ask you to do the work. Ledgerly does the work for you. Our process was designed by professionals who understand how stressful and ambiguous community finances can be, and how to fix that. We didn’t just create another app. We built an association accounting system. Every checklist, calendar, and report is designed with one goal in mind: help boards lead with structure and confidence.
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