Three years ago, the membership voted to waive reserves. The board has been operating without funded reserves ever since. Nobody has voted on it again. That original waiver expired at the end of its budget year. For the last two years, the association should have been collecting reserves, and the board may not even realize it.
The statute: F.S. 720.303(6)(f)
The members of an association may determine, by a majority vote at a duly called meeting of the association, to waive the reserves or reduce the funding of reserves for any fiscal year. Such a vote is effective only for the fiscal year in which the vote is taken.
Two sentences. No ambiguity. A reserve waiver is valid for one fiscal year. When that year ends, the waiver ends with it. If the membership does not vote again the following year, the reserves that were included in the adopted budget go into effect automatically.
What this means in practice
Florida law requires HOA boards to include reserve accounts in the annual budget for capital expenditures and deferred maintenance. The membership has the right to waive or reduce those reserves, but only through a proper vote at a duly called meeting. That vote does not carry forward.
This means the board must put the reserve question on the agenda every single year if it wants to continue operating without full reserves. The vote must happen at a properly noticed meeting. A board decision alone is not sufficient. The membership must approve the waiver, and that approval resets to zero on the first day of the next fiscal year.
The practical consequence of missing the annual vote is significant. If the budget includes reserve line items (as it should, by default) and the membership does not vote to waive them, those reserve contributions become part of the assessment obligation. The board is then required to collect them. A board that continues to operate as if reserves are waived, without a current vote, is underfunding its budget in violation of its own adopted financial plan.
Common failure modes
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"We voted three years ago." That vote expired at the end of its fiscal year. It has no legal effect on the current year or any year after. The board cannot point to a historical vote to justify current underfunding. Each fiscal year requires its own standalone authorization from the membership.
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"The board decided not to fund reserves this year." A board decision is not a membership vote. The statute requires a majority vote of the members at a duly called meeting. The board cannot waive reserves on its own authority, regardless of what the board minutes say. Only the membership can authorize the waiver.
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"Nobody brought it up at the annual meeting." Silence is not a vote. If the reserve waiver question is not on the agenda and the membership does not affirmatively vote to waive, the reserves in the budget remain in effect. The default position under the statute is that reserves are funded. Waiving them requires an affirmative act, not the absence of one.
Bottom line
Put the reserve waiver vote on the annual meeting agenda every year, or stop waiving reserves. There is no middle ground. The statute treats the waiver as an annual exception to the default rule of funded reserves. If the exception is not renewed, the rule applies. Boards that forget this end up with an unfunded budget, potential special assessment exposure, and a paper trail that shows exactly when the oversight began.