An owner walks into the office, or emails the board, demanding to see the association's financials, contracts, or board minutes. You've got a stack of other fires burning. But under both Chapter 718 and Chapter 720, this isn't a request you can let sit in your inbox. Mishandling it is one of the fastest ways an association ends up on the wrong side of a DBPR complaint or a small-claims suit for statutory damages.
The good news is that the rules are learnable and repeatable once you build a process. The categories of what counts as an "official record," what you can redact, and how fast you have to move are not mysteries — they're just details you need to get right every single time, because the burden is on the association to prove it complied, not on the owner to prove you didn't.
What counts as an official record
Both condo and HOA statutes define official records broadly. If it touches how the association is run or spent money, assume it's discoverable unless a specific exception applies.
- Governing documents: declaration, articles, bylaws, rules, and amendments
- Minutes of board and membership meetings, going back the statutory retention period
- Financial records: budgets, financial statements, bank statements, invoices, and reconciliations
- Contracts the association is a party to, including management and vendor agreements
- Ballots, proxies, and voting records from elections
- Insurance policies and, for condos, any required inspection or study reports tied to structural or reserve requirements
What's typically excluded: attorney-client privileged communications, records of pending or anticipated litigation, personnel records of association employees, and personal medical or banking information gathered for owner verification. Don't improvise on redactions — have counsel review your standard redaction practice once and then apply it consistently.
How fast you have to respond
Both chapters impose a specific business-day window for making records available for inspection or copying once a written request is received. The number of days and the exact mechanics differ slightly between condo and HOA law, and the statute gets amended periodically, so don't quote a deadline to a board or an owner from memory. Pull the current text of 718.111 or 720.303, or have association counsel confirm the controlling deadline, before you commit to a date in writing.
What doesn't change: the clock starts when the request is received, not when you get around to reading it. A request dropped off at the office on a Friday starts running that day. Build your intake process assuming the clock is always ticking from day one.
Format and cost rules
Owners generally have the right to inspect records in person at a reasonable time and place, and to request copies at a reasonable cost per page, which the statutes or association resolutions may cap. If the owner wants electronic copies and you maintain records digitally, many associations can satisfy the request that way — confirm your management agreement and current statute language on whether you can charge for staff time to compile electronic records versus just the reproduction cost.
Put your fee schedule in writing and apply it uniformly. An owner who gets charged a different rate than the owner before them has a legitimate complaint, independent of whether the records themselves were ever withheld.
Common mistakes that trigger violations
- Treating a verbal request as not "real" and waiting for something in writing before you start the clock, when the statute doesn't require that
- Redacting entire documents instead of just the privileged or excluded portions
- Letting the request sit with the board attorney for review without telling the owner anything, which looks like refusal even if you intend to comply
- No written log of when the request came in, what was produced, and when
- Assuming a prior unrelated dispute with the owner changes your obligation to produce records — it doesn't
Building a repeatable intake process
A simple intake sheet solves most of this. Every request should generate a dated entry: who requested, what records, date received, date records were made available, and what (if anything) was withheld with a one-line reason tied to a specific statutory exception.
Assign one person — manager or designated board member — as the single point of contact for records requests so nothing falls through the cracks between board members who assume someone else is handling it.
If a request is unusually broad, voluminous, or clearly designed to harass rather than inform, don't just ignore it. Loop in counsel early. Associations can push back on scope and scheduling, but the response still has to happen inside the statutory window, and the pushback itself needs to be documented and reasonable.