Florida boards ask the same question two different ways: "Can we approve this tenant?" and "Can we approve this rental restriction?" They're different problems with different statutes behind them, and conflating them is where most Florida associations get their rental process wrong.
Chapter 718 (condominiums) and Chapter 720 (HOAs) both let associations restrict who may rent and how — but only Chapter 718 puts a number on what approval may cost, and neither chapter tells a board what it may screen a tenant for. Everything else is your declaration's call.
Part one: what a Florida condo board may require
1. Approval has to come from your documents — the statute doesn't create it. Fla. Stat. § 718.303(1) incorporates the declaration, articles, and bylaws into every lease, which is why a tenant is bound by association rules at all. But that section doesn't itself grant a board the power to approve or reject a tenant. If the declaration, articles, or bylaws don't require approval of a lease, sublease, or transfer, the association has no fee-charging authority to attach to one — Chapter 718 assumes the approval right exists in your documents before it regulates what you may charge for it.
2. The fee is capped at $150 per applicant — and that cap already covers leases. Under § 718.112(2)(k)*, an association may not charge a fee for approving a sale, mortgage, lease, sublease, or other transfer unless the declaration, articles, or bylaws require approval and provide for a fee — and that fee may not exceed $150 per applicant. Spouses, and a parent or parents with dependent children, count as one applicant. A renewal lease with the same tenant may not be charged a fee at all. The cap adjusts for inflation every five years. (Some older references cite this provision at § 718.112(2)(i); it currently sits at (2)(k) in the codified statute — check the current section number before quoting it to a board.)
3. A security deposit is allowed — but only if the declaration says so, and only escrowed. If authorized in the declaration, articles, or bylaws, an association may require a prospective tenant to place a security deposit of up to one month's rent into an association-maintained escrow account. This is a separate, optional power from the approval fee — a declaration that's silent on it doesn't get it by implication.
4. Screening criteria aren't in the statute at all. Chapter 718 caps what you may charge; it says nothing about what you may check. Credit history, criminal background, income verification — none of it is addressed by § 718.111, § 718.112, or § 718.303. That makes the declaration and rules the entire source of a board's screening authority, bounded by the general reasonableness standard Florida courts apply to condominium restrictions on use, occupancy, and transfer.*
5. There's no statutory approval deadline — "deemed approved" isn't a Florida rule. Some tenant-screening vendors describe a rule where an unanswered lease application is automatically approved after a set number of days. We could not find that provision anywhere in the current text of Chapter 718. Unless your own declaration sets a response deadline, state law does not supply one — an application can sit unanswered without a statutory default in the tenant's favor.
Part two: HOAs get none of the above
Chapter 720 has no equivalent to any of it. There is no HOA transfer-fee cap parallel to § 718.112(2)(k), no escrowed-deposit authorization, and no screening or approval-timeline provision anywhere in Chapter 720. Whatever an HOA charges to approve a tenant, whatever it screens for, and however long it takes — all of it comes from the declaration alone, unconstrained by the statutory floor condominiums have.
What Chapter 720 does regulate is a different question entirely: who is bound by a rental restriction in the first place. Under § 720.306(1)(h), an HOA amendment that prohibits or restricts rentals binds only owners who consented to it or who take title after it's recorded — except amendments prohibiting rentals of six months or less, or limiting rentals to three times a year or fewer, which bind everyone. (Associations of 15 or fewer parcels are exempt from the section altogether.) The condominium equivalent, § 718.110(13), works the same way for unit leasing restrictions. Neither section has anything to do with approving an individual tenant — they decide whether the rental rule applies to a given owner at all. We cover the full vintage-tracking mechanics on our Florida HOA & condo rental compliance guide; this post is about the approval step that happens after that question is already settled.
Part three: the records duties sitting on top
Approval files don't live in isolation — they're part of the official-records regime Florida's recent condo reforms expanded.
6. Condo website posting: 25 units, 30 days. Under § 718.111(12)(g)1., an association managing 25 or more units (excluding timeshares) must post specified official records to a website or app, generally within 30 days of receiving or creating the record. HB 1021 (2024) dropped the threshold from 150 units to 25, phased in through January 1, 2026; HB 913 (2025) added to the list of documents that must be posted.
7. HOA website posting: 100 parcels, since January 1, 2025. Under § 720.303(5)(b)1., an HOA with 100 or more parcels has had to post specified documents to a website or app since January 1, 2025 — a smaller and later-arriving obligation than the condo rule, but real for larger communities.
Lease approval records — the application, the fee, the escrowed deposit, any denial and its stated basis — sit inside this same records regime. A board that can't produce them on request has an official-records problem on top of whatever the tenant dispute already was.
The audit
- Confirm the approval right actually exists in your documents. No declaration language requiring lease approval means no fee-charging authority to go with it — for condos or HOAs.
- Check your fee against the cap, if you're a condo. $150 per applicant, spouses and dependent children as one applicant, nothing on a same-tenant renewal, adjusted for inflation every five years.
- Confirm any security deposit is authorized in the declaration and actually escrowed — not commingled with operating funds.
- Write down your screening criteria and where they come from. If it's not in the declaration or rules, it's not authorized — regardless of chapter.
- Set your own response deadline in writing, since state law doesn't set one for you.
- Separate the approval file from the vintage file. Whether this owner is bound by the rental restriction at all (§ 718.110(13) / § 720.306(1)(h)) is a different question from whether this tenant is approved — keep the records for each.
- Confirm your records posting obligation — 25 units for condos, 100 parcels for HOAs — and that lease-approval files are retrievable inside it.
The bottom line
Florida gave condominium boards a number — $150 per applicant — and left HOA boards with none at all. Neither chapter tells either kind of board what to screen for or how long they have to decide. That's not a gap in the law; it's the law leaving the approval process to the document that created it. A board that can point to declaration language for its fee, its deposit, and its screening criteria has an approval process that holds up. A board relying on "that's just how we've always done it" has a fee, a deposit, or a rejection with no authority behind it.
Getting the rental picture current, verified, and documented is where that audit starts. That's what we do.
* Our reading of the statute, not a settled rule — validate with your association's HOA attorney before relying on it.
This article is general information for community associations, not legal advice. Lease-approval fees, security deposits, and tenant-screening criteria should be reviewed against your association's declaration and Florida Statutes Chapters 718 and 720 with your association's attorney.