When I took over as president of my community association, one of the first things I had to figure out was the accounting. We were a small community, we did not have a property manager at the time, and our finances were a mess. The previous board had been keeping a rough spreadsheet and a checkbook and calling it accounting. It was not. I had an engineering background, not an accounting background. But I approached the accounting problem the same way I approach any engineerin

I am going to say something that might surprise you coming from a board president: owners have more legal protections in Florida than most boards want them to know about, and more than most owners realize they have. I have been on both sides of this. I was the frustrated owner who did not know his rights before I became the board president who had to learn what the law actually required. What I found is that Florida has built a remarkably comprehensive framework of owner prot

The first budget I ever built for my community association was not pretty. I had just taken over as board president, I had $10,000 in the bank, a failing roof to fund, and absolutely no background in association accounting. I did what most first-time board presidents do: I looked at what the previous board had spent, added a small percentage for inflation, and hoped the numbers were in the right ballpark. They were not. I had underestimated insurance, missed an escalation cla

I want to start with a confession. Every article you will find online about how to choose a Florida HOA management company is written by a management company or a software platform selling to management companies. They all have a financial interest in telling you that professional management is essential and that switching is complicated. Neither of those things is categorically true. I have managed my community both with professional management and without it. I have seen wh

In my years as board president I have had more than a few difficult conversations with owners who were behind on their assessments. I have heard every story: job losses, medical emergencies, divorces, business failures. Every one of those situations was real and I approached each of them with genuine empathy. I also had a responsibility to the other nine owners in my community who were paying their dues every month and counting on the association to meet its obligations. At s

Before I became board president, a lawsuit had been sitting over my community like a storm cloud for years. A balcony belonging to one unit had deteriorated to the point where it was physically pulling the building's stucco away as it shifted. The owner refused to repair it. The previous board warned the owner repeatedly. Nobody acted. Eventually the association sued the owner, the owner sued back claiming the HOA was responsible, and the whole thing dragged on while the balc

For years, the vote to waive reserves at the annual Florida condo meeting was about as controversial as voting on the color of the pool furniture. Owners would gather, the board would present the option to waive reserve contributions for another year, and most rooms would vote yes without much discussion. Who wants to pay more in dues when you can kick the can down the road? The answer, which Florida is learning in real time, is that the can eventually hits a wall. And in a l

When I first heard that Florida was going to require HOA and condo associations to maintain a compliant website, I will be honest: my first reaction was somewhere between an eye-roll and mild panic. I am the president of a small beachside condo community on the Space Coast. None of us got into this to run a web operation. But the more I dug into what is actually required and why, the more I realized the law is solving a real problem. Before this requirement existed, owners wh

I remember the first HOA meeting I ever attended as a board member. I had just agreed to become president of our small Space Coast condo association to solve a looming financial crisis. I had no roadmap, no training, and no one who had done it before me willing to walk me through what the role actually required. I figured it out through a combination of research, mistakes, and a lot of late nights reading Florida statutes. That was a harder way to learn than it needed to be.

I grew up in Sebastian, Florida. In 2004, Frances and Jeanne hit the Space Coast back to back within three weeks of each other. I was old enough to understand what was happening and young enough that it left a permanent impression. By the time I bought my first beachside condo years later, hurricane preparedness was not an abstract concept for me. It was something I took seriously from day one. When I became board president, that same instinct applied to the whole community.

When the Champlain Towers South collapsed in Surfside in 2021, 98 people died in a building that engineering assessments had flagged for structural problems years earlier. The response from Florida's legislature was sweeping and fast. Within months, new laws required that aging Florida condo buildings undergo formal structural inspections and that the reserves to fund future structural repairs be fully funded and non-waivable. Those laws have been refined in every legislative

The first HOA meeting I ever attended ended with the board president screaming profanities at a new owner. The second one was more of the same. By the time I took over as president I had watched a pattern repeat itself across every meeting for years: an owner complains, the board overreacts, nothing actually gets resolved, and everyone leaves angrier than when they arrived. I have also been on the other end. When we had a genuine safety violation in our community, an owner bl

When I took over as president of my Space Coast condo association, we had $10,000 in the bank. The building was insured at $1.5 million. The hurricane deductible on our policy was 5%. Do the math. Five percent of $1.5 million is $75,000. Before our insurance would pay a single dollar on a hurricane claim, we would have had to come up with $75,000 out of pocket. We had $10,000. We would have had to special assess every owner in the association just to cover the deductible befo

I want to be upfront about something before you read a single other word on this topic. Every article comparing self-managed HOAs to property management companies is written by either a property management company trying to sell you their services, or a software company trying to sell you theirs. They all have a financial interest in the answer they give you. I have neither. I am a Florida condo board president who has run my community both ways, seen the results firsthand, a

I want to tell you about a thing I call the paradise tax. It works like this. A contractor pulls up to your beachside Florida condo, sizes up the building, looks at the boats in the marina next door, and adds a number to their quote that has nothing to do with the actual cost of the work. Call it location premium, call it perceived wealth markup, call it whatever you want. I call it the paradise tax, and every board in a desirable Florida market pays it unless they know how t

One of the things I tell every new board member is this: the Florida legislature treats community association law like a home improvement project. They are always adding something, moving something, or tearing something out. What was true two years ago may not be true today. The 2025 legislative session was particularly active. House Bill 913 alone ran 191 pages and touched condo law, cooperative law, manager regulations, milestone inspections, reserve funding, and more. On t

The moment I realized I was going to have to levy a special assessment on my neighbors, I felt sick. I had just taken over as president of a beachside condo association on Florida's Space Coast. The bank account had $10,000 in it. The roof was 14 years old, leaking into multiple units including my own, and we had no path to a loan because too many owners were behind on dues. A special assessment was the only option. The previous board had seen this coming and said nothing. Th

Most people buying a Florida condo look at the monthly fee, glance at the bank balance, and move on. I did exactly that when I bought my first condo on the Space Coast. The HOA had about $50,000 in the bank when I closed. That sounded fine to me. What I did not know was that $50,000 was operating funds and reserves combined, the roof was 14 years old, and the association had not been adequately saving for anything. Within a few years I was sitting in the president's chair sta

One of the first things I learned when I bought my Florida condo is that the monthly HOA fee is not a maintenance subscription. It does not cover everything. It does not even cover most things. And if the board is not running the finances correctly, it might not be covering what it is supposed to cover either. I have been on both sides of this. I was the owner who assumed his fees covered more than they did. Then I became the board president who had to explain to a room full

In 2017, I bought a beachside condo on Florida's Space Coast thinking I was getting a low-maintenance slice of paradise. Within a few years I was the board president, staring down a failing roof, a bank account with $10,000 in it, and a community that had stopped trusting its own leadership. I am an electrical engineer by profession and a problem-solver by instinct. When I took over the presidency I treated every challenge the same way I treat an engineering problem: understa