Your HOA Election Runs on Your Governing Documents, Not the Condominium Statute

Where HOA elections differ from condominiums

Boards that manage both condominiums and homeowners’ associations tend to assume elections work the same way in each. They do not, and the gap is wide enough to invalidate a result.

Florida residential condominium elections follow a detailed statutory schedule: a first notice 60 days out, a candidate deadline, a second notice, ballots, and a prescribed envelope process. Chapter 720 takes a different approach for homeowners’ associations. It establishes baseline requirements and then leaves most of the actual procedure to the association’s own governing documents.

That single structural difference drives everything below.

Read the documents before anything else

For anyone preparing to vote in an HOA election, or weighing whether to run in one, the first instruction is the least exciting and the most important. Read the declaration, the bylaws and the articles of incorporation.

Those documents determine how candidates are nominated, whether nominations are accepted from the floor, what notice the association owes you, how voting is conducted, and what the deadlines are. Two associations three miles apart can run genuinely different elections, both entirely lawful.

Document-based requirements deserve the same respect as statutory ones. They should not be treated as optional merely because Chapter 720 does not impose the statewide 60 day and 40 day calendar that residential condominiums follow.

The practical version for owners: read every election communication the moment it arrives, and write down every candidate and voting deadline it contains. Nobody will send a reminder.

Becoming a candidate

Chapter 720 generally makes association members eligible to serve, subject to statutory limits and to whatever restrictions the governing documents impose.

How you actually become a candidate varies. Some associations invite written notice of intent by a stated deadline. Some accept nominations from the floor at the meeting. Some use a nominating committee. Some combine these. The only way to know which applies is to read the procedure your association uses.

If your association invites a candidate statement, write one that describes what you bring rather than what you promise. A statement that commits to outcomes a single director cannot deliver creates a problem on the day you take your seat. As Doug Jenkins puts it, a director is one member of a governing body, not a candidate for individual control of the association.

Proxies, and why this surprises people

Here is the difference that catches boards moving between property types.

The statutory process for residential condominium board elections generally prohibits proxy voting. Chapter 720 generally does not. HOA members ordinarily have the right to vote in person or by proxy unless Chapter 720 or the governing documents say otherwise.

A valid proxy has to meet its requirements. It must be dated, it must identify the meeting it is given for, and it must be signed. An association that collects proxies casually, or that applies condominium habits to an HOA election, can end up with a result that does not survive a challenge.

The meeting itself, and the 60 days after it

Depending on your procedures, the annual meeting may involve confirming the membership quorum, accepting any nominations permitted at the meeting, candidate introductions, distributing or collecting ballots, in person voting, verifying proxies and advance ballots, closing the polls, counting, and announcing the result.

Owners have the right to attend and to speak on matters opened for discussion or on the agenda. Chapter 720 provides at least three minutes to speak on an item, subject to reasonable written rules.

If something went wrong, the clock is short. Any challenge to an HOA election must be commenced within 60 days after the results are announced. A dispute between a member and the association can go to binding arbitration with the Division or to a court. Owners who believe a material irregularity occurred should preserve their documentation immediately rather than wait to see whether it matters.

What boards should do with this

Most HOA election disputes we see are not about misconduct. They are about owners who did not know what the procedure was, because the procedure lives in a document nobody has opened since closing.

The new board will inherit real decisions quickly, from the budget it has to adopt to the reserve study obligations already in motion. Owners who understand how directors are chosen tend to choose better ones.

Doug Jenkins wrote the October Board Governance Review to be shared with owners rather than read by directors, and it covers all of this in plain language. Send it out before your election communications, not with them.

If you would like us to walk your board through what your own documents actually require before the next cycle, that is a straightforward review and a good use of an hour.