Florida condo compliance software — what Chapter 718 actually requires

The legal frame

A Florida condominium association is governed primarily by Chapter 718, the Condominium Act, with related building-safety obligations under §553.899 and adjacent provisions in Chapter 720 when the association also operates as a master HOA. The Division of Florida Condominiums, Timeshares, and Mobile Homes within DBPR administers Chapter 718, accepts complaints, and publishes guidance. The Legislature has tightened the statute twice in 24 months: HB 1021 in 2024 and HB 913 in 2025.

"Compliance software" for this domain has a specific meaning: a tool that produces the statutory artifacts the board owes — not generic accounting, not a generic owner portal, not a marketing website. The next section lists the artifacts; the section after lists the questions to ask a vendor.

The seven core obligations

1. The §718.111(12)(c) records-request 10-working-day clock

Florida §718.111requires the association to respond to a unit- owner's written records request within 10 working days. The count excludes Florida state holidays defined in §110.117, and the count begins the day after receipt. A denial must cite the specific statutory exception (e.g., attorney-client work product, medical records, personnel files). Compliance software runs the clock, generates the statutory response, and prevents the board from issuing a denial without a §-citation.

2. The §718.111(12)(g) statutory website

A condominium association of 25 or more units must maintain an independent statutory website with the declaration, articles, bylaws, rules, the current and proposed annual budgets, the most recent financial report, the most recent meeting minutes, pending bid summaries, contracts, the Q&A sheet, certification statements, and inspection-report responses. HB 1021 reinforced this with a January 2026 hard deadline. The site must be member-only-accessible for the protected fields, must keep versioned history, and must log access. Compliance software ships this surface as a first-class workflow.

3. §718.112(2)(c)1 — 48-hour board-meeting notice

A regular condo board meeting requires a 48-continuous-hour notice posted conspicuously on the condominium property, with the agenda. Compliance software enforces the 48-hour continuous posting, binds the agenda to the notice, and generates the affidavit of posting that an officer signs.

4. §718.112(2)(e) — 14-day budget-meeting notice with affidavit

Notice of the budget meeting and a copy of the proposed budget must be mailed or hand- delivered at least 14 days before the meeting. An officer signs an affidavit of compliance memorializing the mailing. Compliance software produces both the notice and the affidavit and timestamps each step.

5. §718.303(3)(b) and §720.305(2)(b) — fining-committee composition and procedure

A Florida fining committee must have three or more members, none of whom is an officer, director, employee, or the parent, spouse, child, brother, or sister of any officer, director, or employee. The committee must give the homeowner at least 14 days' notice before the hearing and may only confirm or reject the proposed fine. Compliance software enforces the composition rule and the 14-day clock at creation time, not after the fact.

6. §553.899 + §718.112(2)(g) — milestone inspections under HB 913

Florida condo buildings of three or more stories must complete a Phase 1 milestone inspection by a specific year tied to building age. HB 913 (effective July 2025) refined the Phase 2 trigger, the engineer-of-record rules, and the SIRS budget impact. Compliance software tracks the 2026 milestone-inspection cohort, stores the engineer reports, surfaces the SIRS line items in the budget, and applies the HB 913 amendments to notice templates.

7. §718.112(2)(d)4.b and §720.3033 — HB 1021 director education

Newly elected or appointed directors must complete a written certification of compliance or an approved educational course within 90 days of election. The course covers financial literacy, transparency, fines, communications, and record-keeping. Compliance software tracks per-director completion against the 90-day clock and surfaces the director's status in the board roster.

Vendor-demo checklist

Use these prompts in a vendor demo. If the vendor cannot produce the artifact on screen, assume it does not exist in the product.

• Show me a records-request response with the 10-working-day clock visible, the holiday math applied, and a denial-reason citation block.
• Open the §718.111(12)(g) statutory website you would publish for an association — show me versioned document history and the access log for one document.
• Generate a 48-hour board-meeting notice and the affidavit of posting. Show me the timestamp on the affidavit.
• Generate a 14-day budget-meeting notice and the §718.112(2)(e) affidavit of compliance.
• Create a fining committee. Show me the composition validation — try to add an officer or a director's sibling and see whether the system blocks it.
• Open the milestone-inspection record for a 1985-built three-story building. Where is the Phase 1 engineer report stored? Where is the SIRS line item?
• Add a newly elected director. Show me the 90-day education clock and the per-director status.

What HOA Rocket is

HOA Rocket is Florida condo compliance software. Each of the seven obligations above is a first-class workflow with the statute citation bound to the artifact. The audit log is tamper-evident, so the board can produce the "who clicked what, when, citing what statute" trail when DBPR or counsel asks. We do not run dues collection, GL accounting, vendor payables, or lockbox — boards typically pair us with QuickBooks, a CPA-managed ledger, or PayHOA for the money flow.

Adjacent tools and where they fit

The honest picture is that most Florida condo boards run two or three tools in parallel. A common stack:

• Accounting: QuickBooks, or a CPA-managed ledger, or PayHOA. Records the money. None of these are compliance software.
• Compliance: HOA Rocket. Produces the §718 statutory artifacts.
• Operations: Sometimes a separate vendor for work orders, payables, or communication if the accounting tool does not cover it.

Tools that try to be all three — "all-in-one" community-association platforms — can work, but the question to ask is whether their compliance layer maps to the seven obligations above with statute citations, or whether it is a generic owner portal with marketing language. The Florida HOA software roundup scores eight tools on this question.