A number of years ago, the legislature imposed an obligation upon sellers of homes in communities governed by homeowners associations to provide a disclosure summary to prospective purchasers. That requirement was contained in section 689.26, Florida Statutes. The legislature apparently believed that section was more appropriately contained in the chapter of the Florida Statutes that deals with homeowners associations and the legislature moved that section to section 720.601, Florida Statutes. The legislature also made some changes to the disclosure summary that sellers of properties that are governed by homeowners associations must disclose.

The statute requires that a prospective parcel owner in a community governed by a homeowners association must be presented with a disclosure summary before executing the contract for sale. The statute requires that the disclosure summary be in substantially the form that is contained in the statute. The statute requires that the disclosure summary be supplied by the developer or by the parcel owner, if the sale is by an owner that is not the developer. Contracts or agreements for sale are required to refer to and incorporate the disclosure summary and are required to include prominent language that advises that potential buyer that he should not execute the contract until the buyer has received and read the disclosure summary required by that section.

The law provides that, if the disclosure summary is not provided to the purchaser before the purchaser executes the contract for sale the purchaser may void the contract. Disputes concerning whether a prospective purchaser was provided the disclosure before or after the contract was signed is where most of the controversies arise concerning the effect of this statute. A prudent buyer would have a sufficient supply of the disclosure summaries available so that any prospective purchaser may sign the disclosure even before a contract is even considered by the buyer. Given the nature of real estate transactions and how buyers and sellers customarily negotiate, unless the disclosure form was provided by the seller to the prospective buyer before the seller knew that the prospective buyer intended to make an offer, quite often the contract is presented by the prospective buyer to the seller before any disclosure has been made as required by statute.

I suspect that we will see a number of cases come out of the courts before the legislature modifies the disclosure requirements to make them more consistent with the customs relating to the purchase and sale of residential real estate.