Boards assume that because a restriction is in the declaration, it is enforceable. Florida law does not treat it that way. F.S. 720.3075 and the common-law defenses layered on top of it give homeowners specific grounds to defeat a fine or injunctive action even when the declaration clearly prohibits the conduct. A CAM who walks a board into an enforcement action without a candid read of these defenses is setting the association up for fee-shifting under F.S. 720.305(1).
What the statute says
F.S. 720.3075 is narrow but pointed. It lists specific clauses that developers cannot embed in governing documents, most of which matter at the declaration-drafting stage rather than enforcement. The weight of the defense-of-enforceability analysis sits in common-law doctrines Florida appellate courts have layered on top of the covenant statute. The two that come up most in day-to-day board work are selective enforcement and changed circumstances.
"We have always enforced this rule. Why is the homeowner pushing back?"
Selective enforcement is the defense most likely to kill a fine. The doctrine holds that if the association has permitted the same covenant violation in the community for a sustained period without challenge, and a homeowner can point to a similarly situated parcel that was not fined, the association is equitably estopped from enforcing the covenant against the homeowner who noticed the pattern first. Florida courts have applied this in the trucks-parked-in-driveways line of cases, in the architectural-modification line, and in the leasing- restriction line.
Three practical implications for boards:
- Documentation of prior enforcement actions is load-bearing. Without a log of which owners were cited and when, the board cannot prove consistent enforcement. Most associations do not maintain such a log; building one now is cheaper than discovering you needed one after the demand letter arrives.
- A "grandfather" concession is its own selective-enforcement risk. Boards sometimes say "the shed was there before we paid attention, so we are letting it stay." That concession, uncorrected on the ownership transfer, can be re-raised years later by the next owner of the adjacent parcel who wants the same treatment.
- Decades of silence on a technical violation is a near-fatal defense for the association. If the ficus hedge encroaches on the setback and nobody cited it for 15 years, fining the new owner for the same hedge is a difficult case to win.
"The community has changed. Can the homeowner use that?"
Changed circumstances is the secondary defense. It applies when the character of the community has changed so substantially since the covenant was recorded that the restriction no longer serves its original purpose. Florida courts are reluctant to invalidate covenants on this ground alone; there is usually a specific use-restriction (commercial signage, for instance) that once made sense in a residential community and now sits next to a retail corridor the developer sold off decades ago.
The practical filter is a two-step read. First, what was the covenant designed to prevent? Second, does that prevention still track the current lived character of the community? If the prevention is obsolete and the restriction is onerous, the restriction is vulnerable.
"What does F.S. 720.305(1) do to the math?"
The fee-shift is the reason these defenses matter so much to operating budgets. F.S. 720.305(1) says the prevailing party in an action to enforce the provisions of the governing documents is entitled to recover reasonable attorneys' fees and costs. If the homeowner prevails on a selective-enforcement defense, the association pays both sides. A $500 fine that turns into a $45,000 fee-shifting order is the single worst case a board can walk into uninformed.
Why this post exists
HOAStream pulls the literal statute text plus the reasonable-reading summary in under 500 milliseconds. That is a CAM-team hour saved on the memo that precedes every board enforcement vote. Nothing in this post or in the product is legal advice. For a specific covenant-enforcement decision, a retained Florida HOA attorney is still the right call, and for a good reason: the fee-shift cuts both ways.
If you want the full selective-enforcement case-law stack alongside the Ch. 720 statutes, sign up at /cam or /board.