Condo Board Quality

Florida Condo Board of Directors

Florida condo quality of life can be impacted by the quality of the condo board of directors. The board of directors is commonly tasked with decisions about the operation of the association including contracts, legal matters, and budget choices.

Florida Statutes 718.112 shows that "(1) GENERALLY.— (a) The operation of the association shall be governed by the articles of incorporation if the association is incorporated, and the bylaws of the association, which shall be included as exhibits to the recorded declaration." Florida Statutes 718.112 also provides other responsibilities of the board of directors.

Board Service

Condo board service has been described and commented upon as follows.

• A thankless job. In the section titled "Reserves", the law firm who published this paper wrote that legislation passed in 2022 imposed "... personal liability on association officers and directors if they fail to comply with the milestone inspection and SIRS requirements. As many people know, serving on an association’s board of directors is typically a thankless job. It is an unpaid position requiring constant communication with dissatisfied unit owners about why certain things regarding the building are either occurring or not occurring. Thus, board positions were already difficult to fill in many cases, and now it will likely be even harder to find volunteers willing to subject themselves to personal liability if the association fails or is unable to comply with the legislature’s new directives."
• Burdensome.
• Oh Crap! I'm a New Board Member: What have I gotten myself into?

Number of Board of Directors vs Units in the Association

A condo association's articles of incorporation and/or bylaws may show the number of board seats for the association. If these governing docs do not, FS 718.112 provides minimum board size requirements based on the number of units in the condominium.

The number of board seats along with the total number of units in the association may indicate the difficulty level of filling the board and operating the association.

Board Members Quitting

A pattern of board members that quit can indicate an association with operating problems. The association's board meeting minutes and membership meeting minutes could, and should, show all changes to the board of directors.

Since condo associations are required by Florida Statutes 718.111(1)(a) to be a Florida corporation. Florida corporations generally file annual reports with the state and those records are available to the public through Florida Division of Corporations website sunbiz.org.

Prospective condo buyers and owners can search sunbiz.org by the association's name to find images of the documents submitted to the state including annual reports. These annual reports will show the directors and officers.

Some Florida condo buyers wish they had understood the quality of a condo association's board of directors including members' willingness to serve on the board, as well as other aspects of how the board of directors had operated over the last several years.

Prospective Florida condo buyers should, if they don't understand how condo associations and the association board of director operate, engage licensed and reputable attorneys and advisors to guide their buying decision.