How Florida's HOAs and condo associations are making the housing crisis worse
A housing crisis has three parts: what a home costs, how many are for sale, and whether the people in them get to stay. In Florida the homeowner and condominium associations push on all three. HOA Spy indexes 104,659 Florida associations — the 27,377 with a unit count on file hold 1,518,436 homes between them. Their records show 10,296 foreclosure suits the associations brought against their own members, 460,412 claims of lien and 277,047 lis pendens recorded against homes, 48,999 court records in all, and 6,661 associations whose own corporation has lapsed or fallen out of standing. Every count on this page comes from official court dockets and county records, and every community named links to its own record; the dues and price figures are someone else's, dated and linked where they appear. Suits and liens are counts of filings, not of homes lost.
Where it is happening
8,148 of the 13,601 Florida communities with court records (rings — red where foreclosure is the most common case type) and 8,165 of the 34,198 with recorded liens (dots, coloured by liens in the last five years) have an address or ZIP in the record and are drawn here. Click a pin for the community's report, or open the full-screen map.
10,296foreclosure suits brought by associations against their members
2,695associations that have foreclosed on an owner
An association exists to keep a community maintained and insured and to collect the dues that pay for it. The records show what else the 104,659 Florida associations do with the powers the law gives them, and what it does to the housing around them.
They foreclose on their own members, over debts that start small
Florida law gives every association a lien on each home for unpaid assessments and the right to foreclose it — section 720.3085, Florida Statutes for homeowners' associations, section 718.116, Florida Statutes for condominiums. The debt that starts it can be a few hundred dollars; by the time a suit is filed it carries interest, late charges, collection costs and the association's attorney's fees, all secured by the lien. 10,296 foreclosure suits on file were brought by a Florida association against one of its own members, from 2,695 communities — 2.6% of those indexed. The lender's foreclosures that merely name an association number 1,629: the association is the foreclosing party more often than the bank is.
The peak was 2009, with 875 suits (about 2 a day); 2025, the last full year, had 599, and 667 have been filed so far in 2026.
Each suit is a household that may be forced to sell, a home that may go to auction for the debt and the fees, and a sale that takes place under a deadline instead of on the market. A foreclosure suit is not a lost home — most end when the owner, or the owner's lender, pays — but the pressure is the point.
brought by the associationlender's suit naming the association · 2026 is partial
They put liens on homes that then cannot be sold or refinanced
Before any suit there is a claim of lien, a one-page document in the county's official records against the home. A lien does not have to be foreclosed to do damage: a title company will not close a sale over it, a lender will not refinance behind it, and clearing it means paying whatever the association's lawyer says is owed. In the recorder indexes HOA Spy collects (Broward County Official Records index, Miami-Dade County Official Records index), 460,412 claims of lien have been recorded by associations since 1978, and 277,047 lis pendens — 60% of the liens were followed by a foreclosure filing. 5,702 communities recorded a lien in the last five years; 1,047 liens on file were contested.
2025 saw 7,916 claims of lien, up 8% on 2020 (7,352); the peak was 2008 with 29,518.
They raise the cost of staying: dues, special assessments and the condo-safety bill
Since the Surfside collapse, Senate Bill 4-D (2022) and the laws that followed it require older condominium buildings to pass a milestone structural inspection (section 553.899, Florida Statutes) and to fund structural reserves on the strength of a structural integrity reserve study (section 718.112(2)(g), Florida Statutes), reserves the owners can no longer vote to waive. The repairs and the reserves are paid by the owners, through higher dues and special assessments, and an owner who cannot pay is back at step one above.
The cost is visible in the dues. Redfin reported in August 2024 that median monthly HOA fees in the three months to July 2024, against a year earlier, rose Tampa 17.2% to $614 a month, Orlando 16.7% to $467 a month, Fort Lauderdale 16.2% to $611 a month, against 5.7% across the metros it tracked (Redfin).
Buyers price that in: Mortgage Professional America reported in January 2026, citing housing analyst Nick Gerli, that condo values in Florida fell 9.9% over the preceding twelve months (source). A home that costs more each month to keep and less to sell is the crisis in one sentence.
No public index records what an association charges, so HOA Spy cannot count the assessments. What it can count is what happens when they go unpaid — the liens and foreclosure suits above.
They litigate, and every owner pays for it
Every suit an association files or defends is paid for out of the dues — and the cost of a suit an owner wins is still passed back to the owners. 48,999 court records name a Florida association, from 13,601 communities. The association is the plaintiff in 29,947 of them and the defendant in 14,113; when it is sued, the most common suit is Appellate (4,380). 92 communities have fifty or more cases each — litigation as a matter of routine. The ten busiest communities account for 2% of all the records. Among the 24,664 closed cases with both dates on the docket, half took more than 223 days.
Some have stopped functioning as corporations at all
An association is a corporation, and a corporation that is dissolved, delinquent or not in good standing with the state cannot reliably insure the property, keep its reserves, sign a contract or answer a lender's questionnaire — which is enough to stall every sale in the community. Of the 104,659 Florida associations checked against the state's corporate registry, 3,753 have no active corporation on file and 2,908 are delinquent in their registration — 6% in all.
Corporate status as the registry records it: active (51,981).
The county is the community's own, from its registration or ZIP. Court records are counted only in the courts HOA Spy indexes and liens only in the recorder indexes it collects, so a county whose portal is not read shows few or none.
Florida against the nation
Florida associations bring more foreclosure suits against their members than those of any other state on HOA Spy. 10,296 of the 14,168 on file (73%); Texas is next with 2,349.
One in three HOA lawsuits in the country is a Florida caseFlorida holds 48,999 of the 147,465 court records naming a homeowner or condominium association on HOA Spy (33%). Texas is next with 41,271, and no other state reaches 15,879.
Florida associations foreclose on their own members more than every other state combined12,006 Florida court records are foreclosure cases — the association foreclosing its lien on a home, or named in a lender's foreclosure — 55% of the 21,898 nationwide. Texas is next with 5,084.
When homeowners sue their association, half the time it is in Florida14,113 Florida records have the association as the defendant, 51% of the 27,622 such records in every state. Texas is next with 3,747. Florida also leads in 996 insurance disputes (36% of the nation's) and 800 fair-housing and other civil-rights suits (41% of the nation's).
737,459 lien and foreclosure filings against homeowners in Broward and Miami-Dade countiesThe recorder indexes of Broward and Miami-Dade counties alone list 460,412 claims of lien and 277,047 lis pendens (the filing that starts a foreclosure) by associations. At the peak, in 2009, associations there recorded 46,427 lis pendens — about 127 a day. One community, BEACHPLACE TOWERS CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION, INC., has 8,798 claims of lien on file. (Lien indexes are collected for Florida, Illinois and New York only, so this is a count for the covered counties, not a national ranking.)
2026 is already Florida's busiest year on file2,816 Florida court records have been filed so far in 2026, past the 2,549 of 2010, the previous record; 2025 had 2,476. 92 Florida communities have 50 or more court records each, more than any other state. Maryland is next with 73.
These are counts of records on file, not rates. Florida has 104,659 indexed associations — more than any other state — and its county courts publish deep case histories, so it counts more. Per hundred communities, Florida has 47 court records; Maryland has 603 and Texas has 231. A state whose courts hide older cases ranks lower whatever its associations do.
What a buyer, an owner or a legislator can do
Before buying, read the association's record.Search it on HOA Spy: every lien, lis pendens and court case on file, each linked to the official record, and its corporate standing. A community that forecloses as a matter of routine, or whose corporation has lapsed, is a fact to price in before the inspection period ends.
Ask for the budget, the reserve study and the inspection report. Florida law entitles a buyer to the association's documents and a condominium buyer to the milestone inspection report and the reserve study; under the usual Florida sale contract a special assessment levied before the contract is the seller's and one voted later is for the parties to settle, so ask what is pending. What the records cannot count — the assessments to come — is in those papers.
If a lien or a notice arrives, use the notice window. Ask for an itemised ledger; much of a lien balance is often fees added to a smaller debt. Paying the assessments before the deadline in the notice of intent stops the suit, and a dispute put in writing before the deadline is kept. Legal aid offices and bar referral services handle these cases.
For policy: the levers the records point at are the fees and interest a lien may secure, the floor below which an association may not foreclose, a right to a payment plan before suit, and public reporting of what associations charge — the one number no index holds. This page is not legal advice.
Miami-Dade County trial courts: Miami-Dade Clerk Commercial Data Services Civil FTP feed (daily civil tables + weekly indebtedness dump) (8,025 association cases)
Federal dockets and state appellate opinions: CourtListener (RECAP archive and bulk data, snapshot 2026-09-30)
Broward liens: Official Records yearly index exports, public SFTP, 1978-2025 (553,668 documents)
Miami-Dade liens: Miami-Dade Clerk Official Records public search API (per-association name queries), 1978-2026 (225,403 documents) — best-effort (partial): 53% name-match hit rate; 59 mass filers truncated at the API's 500-row cap
Foreclosure cases are the dockets whose nature of suit is a foreclosure, in the courts HOA Spy indexes; the association's side is the role the court recorded, else the caption. Corporate standing is the state registry's as last checked. A community outside the indexed courts can have records this page does not count; names are matched conservatively, so an ambiguous match is left out rather than guessed. Sources & methodology.
Questions people ask
Are HOAs making Florida's housing crisis worse?
The records show them adding to it in ways that can be counted: 10,296 foreclosure suits brought by associations against their own members, 460,412 liens recorded against homes, 48,999 court records paid for out of dues, and 6,661 associations whose corporation has lapsed. The dues and special assessments, which no public index records, come on top of that.
Can a Florida HOA really foreclose on a home over unpaid dues?
Yes. The association's lien for assessments can be foreclosed like a mortgage after the statutory notice, and 2,695 Florida associations have done it at least once. Florida's homestead protection does not bar an assessment lien.
How much have Florida HOA fees gone up?
HOA Spy does not collect dues. Redfin reported in August 2024 that median monthly HOA fees in the three months to July 2024, against a year earlier, rose Tampa 17.2%, Orlando 16.7%, Fort Lauderdale 16.2% (source).
Why are Florida condo assessments rising?
After the Surfside collapse, Senate Bill 4-D (2022) required milestone structural inspections of older buildings and fully funded structural reserves that owners can no longer waive; the repairs and the reserves are paid by the owners through dues and special assessments. The statutes are linked in the sources above.
Which Florida associations have the most court records?
Florida ranks 1st of the states on HOA Spy for foreclosure suits brought by associations, with 10,296 of 14,168. The count depends on which courts are indexed in each state as well as on the associations, so it is a count of records, not a rate.
How do I check a Florida community before I buy?
Search it by name on HOA Spy: its report lists every lien, lis pendens and court case on file with a link to the official record, its corporate standing, and which sources were checked. The Florida statewide page has every number by county and by year.