From California to Florida ... HOA Coast to Coast

By Jacqueline Vanacek

This article first appeared in The Communicator Magazine, Spring 2025.

When I moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to the Gulf Coast of Florida, I thought I was done being an HOA board president. Not so! Now I have one HOA foot on each coast.

It is fascinating to see homeowner associations end to end, from a builder board in Florida to an owner board in California. And boy are those board objectives different. In 2024, I attended CAI West Florida Chapter’s “Home On The Range” to learn about Florida’s HOA best practices. As a California board director living in a Florida HOA, I was looking for common ground.

WHERE DID HOAS COME FROM?

California has the largest number of homeowner associations in the country, with approximately 80% of multi-family residences in HOAs. Homeowner associations (HOAs), or common interest developments (CIDs), first appeared in the 1960s when high density housing exploded. Cash-strapped municipalities looked to “associations” to fund infra- structure on “private property,” such as streets and sewage. A new ecosystem between developers, vendors, and volunteer boards formed to manage high density communities, at great expense to private owners.

2022-23 data from Foundation for Community Association Research:

• 365,000 community associations in U.S., with 75.5M US residents.
• 66% of new homes built in U.S .are in an HOA. And it’s growing.
• 45% of Florida’s population lives in an HOA.
• 36% of California’s population lives in an HOA.
• California has about 1.7X more people than Florida.
• California has more HOA laws than Florida, but Florida is catching up.

MANAGING AN OLDER HOA

As a technology executive in Silicon Valley, I took over my California HOA board to protect our property values. We were a mature HOA facing major upgrades, like a new fire alarm system and pool remodel. Our 35-year-old homes had appreciated exponentially and commanded high market prices. With limited reserves, we prioritized projects, hired vendors, and replenished funds in record time.

It was incredibly stressful for a volunteer board to protect the California nest egg of so many, especially our seniors. But, it propelled me to immediately educate myself in HOA practices at my new homesite in Florida.

Accordingly, I reached out to our builder board president. Her full-time job is to manage the builder’s HOAs like our beautiful Beachwalk By Manasota Key in Sarasota County, Florida. She was knowledgeable and gracious and educated me on how a builder board deficit funds our new home site until an owner board is elected about 6-10 years into the build cycle.

My new Florida HOA operates differently than my California HOA; so, I summarized some key learnings on how the two HOAs compare.

HOA LEARNINGS & GOTCHAS ... FROM BUILDER BOARD TO OWNER BOARD

Reserve Funding

No matter where your HOA is located or how old it is, managing reserves is critical. Reserves are created by setting aside from 10-50% of monthly HOA assessments to pay for planned expenses over a 30-year period.

(Examples: amenities center repairs, pool remodel, etc.) Reserves are for longer-term expenses, whereas the operating budget “keeps the lights on” for monthly expenses like the gardener, utilities, security, and pest control.

Florida law does not require the builder to fund reserves. Instead, the builder board at Beachwalk, which has about 560 homes built out of 1,600 homes planned, funds the difference between monthly HOA assessments and the much higher actual maintenance costs. Once the builder board turns over to an elected owner board, the owner board must accelerate its own funding of the reserves to ensure high quality maintenance in future.

In California, many HOAs have not built adequate reserves for 30 years of planned maintenance. In our Silicon Valley HOA, we prioritized projects and aggressively negotiated with vendors to make every dollar count. Our long-term repairs were caught up, we are replenishing savings, and our property is beautiful. But it was painful; and it never ends.

I still have a letter from counsel admonishing ALL California HOAs to get their reserves in order following the 2021 high rise collapse in Surfside, Florida. While Florida HOAs might not know it, that disaster put California HOAs on notice, too.

Key tips on reserve funding include:

• Fund aggressively from Day 1 or pay the price later.
• Avoid special assessments because realtors might view your HOA as “poorly managed” and bypass it for prospective buyers.
• Collaborate with builder board and neigh- boring HOAs on ways to grow reserves, even pre-turnover, by increasing the budget contribution.

Legal Compliance

California’s Davis-Sterling Statutes, which gov- ern HOAs, are more extensive than Florida’s Ch 720 of FL Statutes. That’s both good and bad. HOAs are heavily regulated non-profit corporations whose association members are “shareholders.”

Governing documents control: elections and governance (bylaws); and rights, responsibilities, and privileges for common area property (CC&Rs).

HOA governing documents are legally binding and fall under state statutes in the following hierarchy:
1) Ch 720 of FL Statutes or California’s Davis-Sterling Statues
a. HOA Articles of Incorporation

i. Bylaws
ii. Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&Rs)
iii. Rules & Regulations - pool rules, golf carts, EV charging, parking, etc.

Sometimes state statutes and an HOA’s bylaws and CC&Rs can be unclear or even contradictory. In California we always clarify inconsistencies with counsel to avoid using HOA funds inadvertently on owner repairs. We even help counsel write policies to reduce our legal costs. We also access Davis-Stirling Statutes online. The portal was written specifically for California boards by the law firm that developed the California statutes. I’ve shown the Davis-Sterling Statues portal to Florida HOA attorneys at CAI events and have encouraged CAI to work with Florida HOA attorneys to create a Florida version.

Revising Bylaws and CC&Rs

An HOA’s initial governing docs are writ- ten by the builder’s counsel. The builder’s goal is to sell homes for profit. Bylaws and CC&Rs reflect that. This allows new homes to appreciate while the builder deficit funds common area expenses. But, later in the build cycle, an owner board takes over the maintenance costs directly. And, the original CC&Rs and bylaws might need revision.

For example, our California builder had specified four types of patio trees in our original CC&Rs 35 years ago. Tree choices no longer made sense; so, we changed the governing docs. We also extended the terms of our elected board of directors.

At Beachwalk in Florida, our builder board has three directors with unilateral author- ity. Owners have no vote. But, the future owner board will make policy changes via membership vote. With quorum and majority requirements, it will be much harder to change the governing docs by membership vote after the builder board turns the HOA over to the owner board. Hence, interested owners are talking to the builder board early to learn and influence where possible.

Community Resources and Relationships
In California, several HOA trade associations support the volunteer owner boards. We even initiated best-practice sharing between HOAs so we could mentor each other, swap vendors and build group knowledge to protect our hefty home prices. And, “share the misery” over coffee!

Our California HOA also created a tradition of bringing Christmas goodies to our police and fire departments and animal control (who “love” being called to get the ducks out of our pool). I started the same tradition at my Beachwalk HOA in Florida, as well. It’s a lovely way to “meet the neighbors” and support the entire community.

Finally, in California we had a city-funded program called “Know Your Neighbor.” The city funded small grants to HOAs to bring residents together. Each year we held a progressive dinner to meet our neighbors and first responders. Since our HOA consisted of tech professionals and startup entrepreneurs from around the world, it was delightful to share cultures and foods from different countries.

My new Beachwalk HOA in Florida has a gorgeous amenities center with regular get-togethers; so, we have a built-in know your neighbor program. Other Florida HOAs can ask if their cities sponsor such a pro- gram. I checked with Sarasota County, who thought launching a know your neighbor grant program was a great idea.

Join me in “planting seeds” in your com- munity, too.

FROM DUCKS IN THE POOL TO ...GATORS !!!
Who’d have thought that running a California HOA would help with my new Florida HOA? Maybe being on the board is not so “thank- less” after all. But, dodging the self-driving car in Silicon Valley seems a lot less dangerous than dodging GATORS here in the Sunshine State! My word, what a tradeoff ... welcome to Florida. ■

Jacqueline Vanacek is a technology executive from Silicon Valley, a California HOA board president, and Florida HOA member. Her TLC4Troops. org non-profit makes care packages for troops and veterans.