Florida HOA & condo lawsuits, liens and foreclosures: the numbers

Florida on the map

8,148 of the 13,601 communities with court records (rings, coloured by their 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; the rest have no location in any record and are not on the map, but stay searchable. Click a pin for the community's report, or open the full-screen map.

HOA Spy indexes 104,659 Florida homeowner and condominium associations. 13,601 of them appear in 48,999 court records — 35,134 from county and state trial courts, 10,436 from appellate courts and 3,429 from federal dockets. The county lien indexes we collect list 460,412 association liens and 277,047 foreclosure filings (lis pendens) against owners. Florida ranks 1st of the 15 states with the most court records on HOA Spy. Every number on this page is computed from official court and county records; data as of 2026-10-02.

The facts

• The records are spread thin: 7,435 of the 13,601 communities with a court record appear in exactly one case, and the ten most-litigated together hold only 2% of the records.
• Associations are usually the ones suing: they were the plaintiff in 29,947 records and the defendant in 14,113 — 68% of the cases with a known side were brought by the association, typically to collect assessments.
• 2026 is already the busiest year on file, with 2,816 records filed by 2026-10-02. The last full year, 2025, had 2,476 — up 92% on 2020 (1,288).
• Other cases make up 34% of the records (16,524): dockets that carry no nature of suit or one outside these groups (county civil dockets often say only "civil"). Next come Foreclosure cases (12,006).
• 35,134 records come (72%) from county and state trial courts, 10,436 from appellate courts and 3,429 from federal dockets.
• 800 records are fair-housing, disability-accommodation or other civil-rights suits — the kind of case a buyer with a service animal or an accessibility request should know about.
• The recorder indexes for Broward and Miami-Dade counties list 460,412 association liens and 277,047 lis pendens (foreclosure filings) since 1978; 5,702 communities filed at least one lien in the last five years.
• Lien filings peaked in 2008 (29,518 in one year); 2025 saw 7,916, up 8% on 2020 (7,352).
• BEACHPLACE TOWERS CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION, INC. alone has 8,798 liens on file (1998–2025).

What the cases are about

Each court record is labelled by its nature of suit the way the map colours it. Florida's 48,999 records break down as:

• Other16,524 · 34%
• Foreclosure12,006 · 25%
• Appellate10,436 · 21%
• Collections5,552 · 11%
• Property2,462 · 5%
• Insurance996 · 2%
• Civil Rights800 · 2%
• Labor179 · 0%
• Eviction35 · 0%
• Tax9 · 0%

Other: dockets that carry no nature of suit or one outside these groups (county civil dockets often say only "civil") · Foreclosure: the association foreclosing its lien, or named in a lender's foreclosure · Appellate: decisions of the state's appellate courts · Collections: assessment, debt and contract claims · Property: property and condominium disputes · Insurance: coverage disputes with an insurer · Civil Rights: fair-housing, disability-accommodation and other civil-rights claims · Labor: employment and labor claims · Eviction: eviction and unlawful-detainer actions · Tax: tax matters

Who is suing whom

The side comes from the role the court recorded for the association where the docket gives one, otherwise from which side of the “v.” the association's name sits. Appeals, petitions and association-versus-association captions stay undetermined.

Filings by year

court records · 2026 is partial

The oldest records on file date from 1940. Years reflect the filing date on the docket (the decision date for appellate opinions); records with no date are left out. Coverage grows as courts are added, so part of any rise is HOA Spy reaching more dockets — see the sources below.

Where the cases are

The county is the community's own (from its registration or ZIP), not the court's. Courts with the most Florida records: Broward County Civil Central Courthouse (15,230); Miami-Dade County Circuit Court, Civil Division (5,129); Broward County Civil West Courthouse (3,692); District Court of Appeal of Florida (3,210); Miami-Dade County Court, Civil Division (2,918); Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal (2,034); District Court, S.D. Florida (1,987); Florida Third District Court of Appeal (1,610).

Associations with the most court records

A long record is not by itself a verdict on a community: a large association collecting assessments through the courts can have hundreds of small-claims entries. Open the profile to see what the cases are and who brought them.

Liens and foreclosure filings

From the official-records indexes of Broward and Miami-Dade counties (Broward County Official Records index, Miami-Dade County Official Records index). A claim of lien is recorded when an association says an owner owes it money; a lis pendens is recorded when it actually files the foreclosure suit. Communities elsewhere in Florida are not covered: no lien shown there means not checked, not clean.

claims of lienlis pendens · 2026 is partial

Communities with the most liens on file

Communities with the most foreclosure filings

Corporate standing

Status as the registry lists it: active (51,981). An association that lets its corporation lapse can lose the right to sue in its own name until it is reinstated.

How Florida compares

The states with the most court records on HOA Spy. The share column is the part of each state's indexed communities that appear in at least one case; it depends on which courts are indexed there as much as on the communities themselves.

Where this data comes from

• Trial courts: Broward County Clerk — eCaseView — Broward County
• Trial courts: Miami-Dade Clerk — civil, family & probate search — Miami-Dade County
• Trial courts: Hillsborough County Clerk — HOVER — Hillsborough County
• 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
• Lien index searched: Broward County Official Records
• Lien index searched: Miami-Dade Clerk — Official Records
• Association roster: FL DBPR condo extracts (27,955 records)
• Corporate standing: Sunbiz quarterly non-profit extract (SFTP) (210,713 records)
• IRS roster: IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File (285 records)
• Not collected: Palm Beach County lien index — subscription $600/yr
• Not collected: DBPR arbitration final orders — search form broken; published indexes stop ~2008

Most HOA litigation happens in state trial courts, which have no national index; HOA Spy reads the portals it can. A Florida community outside the indexed courts can have cases this page does not count. Names are matched conservatively, so an ambiguous match is left out rather than guessed. Sources & methodology.

Questions people ask

How many HOA lawsuits are filed in Florida each year?

In 2025, the last full year, 2,476 court records naming a Florida community association were filed in the courts HOA Spy indexes; the five-year average is 1,732 a year. The busiest year on file is 2026 with 2,816.

Which Florida associations have the most court cases?

By records on file: GRANDE OASIS AT CARROLLWOOD CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION, INC. (137); PALMERA POINTE CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION, INC. (135); PLACE ONE CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION, INC. (132). Most of these are suits the associations brought themselves, typically to collect assessments.

How many HOA liens and foreclosures are recorded in Florida?

In Broward and Miami-Dade counties — the only Florida recorder index collected so far — 460,412 association liens and 277,047 lis pendens are on file; 7,916 liens were recorded in 2025.

Do Florida HOAs sue homeowners more than they get sued?

In the records with a known side, the association was the plaintiff 29,947 times and the defendant 14,113 times. Suits brought by associations are typically assessment collection and lien enforcement; suits against them typically come from owners, insurers or lenders.

How do I check a specific Florida HOA?

Search it by name on HOA Spy: the report lists every lien, case and complaint on file with a link to the official record, and says which sources were checked. Communities with records also have a profile page under the Florida directory. Data as of 2026-10-02.