Florida law requires condo and HOA associations of certain sizes to maintain a website with specific documents posted publicly. The full requirement list, the deadlines, and how to do it without enterprise-grade overhead.
• Florida statute 718.111(12)(g) requires condominium associations with 150+ units to maintain websites with specific governance documents. • HOAs fall under chapter 720 with overlapping requirements. • Non-compliance exposes associations to fines and lawsuits. • A lean website stack costs far less than enterprise condo software.
Florida is one of the most aggressively regulated condo and HOA markets in the country, and the website-compliance rules are part of why. This guide is the working operator's manual we use with association clients across Brevard, Indian River, and Volusia counties, what the law actually requires (versus what people assume), how to comply without enterprise-vendor overhead, and the operational rhythms that keep an association out of trouble.
We're not lawyers. Anything that looks like legal advice in this document is just us summarizing what the statute says and what we've seen work. Verify with your association attorney before relying on it.
Florida's condo-website requirements came out of years of disputes where boards made decisions, hid the documentation, and then tried to defend themselves with "the records were available if you asked." The state's response was to require active publication of the most-fought-over documents (meeting minutes, budgets, contracts) so owners can actually verify what's happening without having to file a formal records request.
The result is a legal regime that treats the association website as a public-records system, not just a marketing surface. That framing is important because it changes what the website needs to do.
The threshold under chapter 718 (condominiums) is 150 units. If your condo association has 150 or more units, the website is required. If you're under 150, it's not required by statute, but many smaller associations build one anyway because:
Chapter 720 (homeowners associations) has separate rules with similar logic. The 2024 legislative session expanded HOA website requirements significantly, particularly around financial-document publication and meeting notice posting. If you're an HOA, especially a larger one, read the current statute carefully.
Florida associations across the Space Coast must meet specific website requirements based on unit count.
The list below reflects the requirements after the most recent statutory updates. Treat it as a starting point; the legislature has been actively expanding it almost every session.
The rule of thumb: anything containing personal financial information, vendor pricing details, or owner-specific records goes behind the login. Anything that's a governance document affecting all owners goes public.
Public and owner-only documents must be clearly separated for Florida statutory compliance.
The statute doesn't just require that documents exist on a website, it imposes structural requirements that most off-the-shelf templates miss.
The owner portal can't just be a generic password. The association has to verify that the person accessing the owner-only documents is actually an owner of record. Common implementations:
Whatever method you use, document it in writing. Owners who are denied access have grounds to dispute, and the burden is on the association to show its verification process is fair.
Posted documents have to remain available for specific minimum periods:
The website has to host them, not just have a link to a different system. "Click here to email us for the minutes" is not compliant.
Florida hasn't yet passed condo-specific accessibility rules, but federal ADA requirements apply to association websites that serve as a public accommodation (the public-facing portion does). Practical impact: PDF documents should be machine-readable (text, not just scanned images), the website should work with screen readers, and color contrast should meet WCAG 2.1 AA. Associations have been sued under ADA for inaccessible websites; it's not theoretical.
Not a statutory requirement, but the practical one. Half of owner traffic on association websites comes from mobile. A site that takes 8 seconds to load on a phone effectively isn't accessible to a meaningful chunk of your owners, and at that point you're inviting "I couldn't find the notice" disputes that the courts treat seriously.
Technical requirements such as owner verification and document retention are frequently overlooked.
The statutory requirements assume an active operational rhythm. Most non-compliance issues we see come from boards that built a beautiful initial website and then let it stagnate.
A simple monthly board check-in that walks through this list takes 15 minutes and prevents 95% of compliance disputes.
A simple monthly check-in prevents most compliance issues for Florida associations.
The big condominium-software vendors (Buildium, AppFolio, FrontSteps, Vantaca, RUBS) bundle website + accounting + maintenance + voting into integrated platforms. They start around $1,000/year for small associations and scale to $5,000-15,000+ for medium and large. They're appropriate when the association also wants:
If all you need is the website + document portal + meeting notices, those features are overkill and the cost is hard to justify.
The leaner stack:
Total: $20-50/month. Setup time: 20-40 hours for an experienced developer if starting from scratch, less if adapting an existing site template.
For a 200-unit association, that's about $300-600/year versus $1,500-3,000+ for the bundled vendors. The catch: you need someone to maintain it. Either an internal volunteer (works for ~6 months, then breaks) or a managed monthly retainer with a web developer (the model we run for Brevard associations: $300-500/mo to keep the site current).
A structured remediation process helps associations return to compliance quickly and defensibly.
Don't panic. Most boards are surprised to learn the full list of requirements, and the statute doesn't impose retroactive penalties on associations that come into compliance promptly.
The recovery sequence:
Triggers that should prompt a website review:
Most associations should expect to make at least one significant website update per quarter. If your website has been static for more than 6 months, it's almost certainly out of compliance with at least one item.
If your association has 50-300 units and you're not already locked into one of the big vendors, the lean stack we described works fine. Hire a web developer (local Florida firm or otherwise) for a one-time setup and a small monthly maintenance retainer. Total annual cost: $4,000-8,000 if you outsource everything, or $500-1,500 if you have an internal volunteer who can handle the routine updates.
If your association is over 300 units, the integrated vendor platforms start to make sense because you also benefit from the accounting + voting features. Get quotes from two or three; the pricing is more negotiable than the vendors initially admit.
If your association is under 50 units and you're not statutorily required to have a website, you don't need one, but you should still have a document-sharing system in place that owners can access. Google Drive folders with restricted access work fine for small associations and cost nothing.
Things that justify the legal-fee spend:
Things you can handle without a lawyer:
Tap a question to expand.
If your association needs help building a compliant, low-overhead website, or auditing an existing one for gaps, get in touch. We work with several Brevard County associations and have the operational rhythm down to a quarterly retainer that handles all the routine compliance work without the bundled-vendor markup.
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