Can You Dissolve Your HOA in Florida? What Actually Happened to HB 657
A widely shared rumor says Florida passed a law letting homeowners dissolve their HOA. Here is the truth: HB 657 passed the House, then died in the Senate. What the bill would have done, what the law allows today, and what to watch in 2027.
If you have seen posts claiming that Florida passed a law letting homeowners vote their HOA out of existence, you are not alone. The claim spread fast in early 2026. It is also wrong.
Here is the short version. A bill that would have created the first clear statewide process for dissolving a homeowners association passed the Florida House by a near unanimous margin, then stalled and died in the Senate before the session ended. It was never signed into law. As of today, it has no legal effect.
This post walks through what the bill was, what it would have changed, why so many people believe it became law, and what dissolving an HOA in Florida actually involves right now.
The bill: HB 657, the Homeowners' Association Dissolution and Accountability Act
HB 657 was filed for the 2026 legislative session by Representative Juan Carlos Porras. It was a broad community association reform package, and its headline feature was the part that got everyone's attention: a defined statutory pathway to terminate an HOA, something Florida law had never spelled out in detail before.
If it had become law as written, the dissolution process would have worked roughly like this:
- A petition signed by at least 20 percent of a community's voting interests would start the process.
- The board would then have 60 days to hold a meeting of the members.
- A plan of termination would need approval from at least two thirds of all voting interests to pass.
- Board officers who obstructed the process would face penalties of 5,000 dollars per violation.
The bill also reached well beyond dissolution. It would have created a Community Association Court Program, a specialized court track for HOA and condo disputes. It would have removed the presuit mediation requirement, pushing disputes into court faster. And it introduced what is known as Kaufman language, wording that automatically updates a community's governing documents whenever state law changes, so the rules do not drift out of date.
What actually happened: passed the House, died in the Senate
This is the part the viral posts left out.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| December 4, 2025 | HB 657 filed for the 2026 session |
| March 5, 2026 | Florida House passes the bill, 108 to 2 |
| March 2026 | Bill referred to the Senate Rules committee |
| March 13, 2026 | Legislative session ends, bill dies in committee without a Senate vote |
The House support was overwhelming, which is exactly why the headlines were so confident and why the rumor took hold. But a bill is not law until it clears both chambers and is signed. HB 657 never got a hearing or a vote in the Senate Rules committee, and when the 2026 regular session ended, the bill died there along with several other community association measures.
Why so many people think it passed
Two things combined.
First, the bill genuinely sailed through the House with near unanimous support, and that generated a wave of news coverage while it was moving. A lot of that coverage ran with forward looking headlines about Florida "allowing" or "letting" homeowners terminate their associations.
Second, "can I dissolve my HOA" is one of the most searched HOA questions in Florida. There is a large, motivated audience primed to hear that the answer just changed. When a bill that promised exactly that passed the House, many people read the headline, assumed it was final, and shared it.
The result is a classic case of a proposal being mistaken for a law.
So can you dissolve a Florida HOA today?
Dissolving an HOA in Florida is not flatly impossible, but it is difficult, and the clean statutory pathway HB 657 promised does not exist. That gap is precisely the problem the bill was trying to solve.
In practice, whether and how an HOA can be terminated depends heavily on the community's own governing documents, especially the declaration of covenants. Those documents often require a very high supermajority of owners to amend or terminate, and dissolution can involve additional legal and financial complications such as who takes over private roads, drainage, insurance, and shared amenities, plus how lenders and title companies treat the property afterward.
Condominium associations are a separate matter. Florida condominiums are governed under a different chapter of state law and already have their own termination process, which is a fundamentally different legal procedure because it involves the physical structure of the building.
This is where the caution flag goes up. The mechanics of dissolving an HOA are genuinely legal questions, and the answer is specific to your community's documents and your county. This article is general information, not legal advice. If you are seriously considering it, talk to a Florida licensed community association attorney before you do anything.
What to watch next
A bill that passes one chamber 108 to 2 rarely disappears for good. Near unanimous House support is a strong signal that a similar measure could be refiled in a future session, with the Senate as the place to watch. Nothing is guaranteed, and the details could change, but this is a live issue in Florida, not a closed one.
We will update this post if the legislation returns.
The takeaway for buyers and owners
Whether an HOA can realistically be dissolved is not just a legal curiosity. It affects how locked in you are to the fees, rules, and management of a community you are about to buy into. That is the whole reason to understand a community before you close, not after.
Search any Florida community on HOAReview.com to see its fees, rules, management track record, and resident reviews in one place, so you make the decision with your eyes open.
Sources
- Florida Legislature, HB 657 (2026 Session), bill page and committee analyses: flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2026/657
- Florida House of Representatives, CS/CS/CS/CS/HB 657 bill detail
- 2026 Florida End of Legislative Session reports from community association management and law firms confirming the bill died in committee
This article is general information about Florida law and is not legal advice. HOAReview.com is not a law firm. Consult a Florida licensed attorney about your specific situation.