The Florida Legislature has made amendments to the Florida Condominium and Homeowners
Association Acts which took effect on July 1, 2021. These recent amendments require some
additional steps in an Association’s collection process which are outlined below. If you have questions
about your community’s individualized collection process, you should work with your vendors and attorney to be sure you are in compliance.


FOR FLORIDA HOAs:
The recent amendments under Senate Bill 56 require the HOA to send a 30 day notice to each
owner before the account may be sent to an attorney. A sample notice is provided in the statute. The notice must include: the amount owed and the date(s) the amount(s) were assessed, the late fees (if any), interest (if any), and the total. The notice must give the owner at least 30 days opportunity to pay in full before the account can be sent to an
attorney and before any attorney’s fees may be collected from the owner. The notice should be
sent via first class mail to the property address and any alternate addresses on file for the owner.
The Association should keep an affidavit of mailing on hand to establish when it was mailed.


FOR FLORIDA CONDOMINIUMS:
In addition to the new 30 day letter discussed above, the amendments to the Condo
statute also include an enlargement of time on the pre-litigation letters – condos must now give 45 days’ notice
before theycan record a Claim of Lien and 45 days’ notice of their intent to foreclose (these time
periods used to be 30 days for condominiums but have been enlarged to 45 to match the HOA
statute).


Feel free to contact our office to discuss how this impacts your community’s
collections. We are happy to help navigate these changes.