Florida can revoke a condo manager's license and bar the firm from the industry. New York has no license to revoke.

Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation revoked a South Florida community association manager's license in September 2026, documented eight complaints, imposed more than $120,000 in fines and costs, and described the conduct as a "true danger to the public." Under HB 913 (2025), the revocation automatically triggered a 10-year bar from any position at a Florida management firm. Every association that manager served received mandatory certified-mail notice from the state within days. New York has no equivalent sequence because it requires no license to begin with.

What Florida's licensing framework requires.

Florida has required a state license to manage a community association since Chapter 468 of the Florida Statutes was enacted in 1988. Any person who provides community association management services for compensation must hold a CAM license issued by DBPR. The statute defines management services to include collecting assessments, enforcing deed restrictions, maintaining association records, coordinating repair and maintenance work, and preparing the annual financial disclosures that unit owners are entitled to receive under Florida Statute §718.111. A person who performs those functions without a license commits a second-degree misdemeanor.

The license requires passing a state examination, completing continuing education credits annually, and maintaining a surety bond. Management firms must also obtain a separate firm license. When a firm license is revoked, the individuals practicing under it cannot continue operating.

Florida's 2022 Condominium Safety Act (HB 1021, enacted after the Champlain Towers South collapse) focused on structural inspections and reserve funding. That legislation is what most New York observers know as the Florida post-Surfside response. HB 913, signed on June 23, 2025, and effective July 1, 2025, addressed a separate problem: a manager whose license was revoked could wait out a disqualification period, re-apply, and continue operating through a related firm whose license remained intact. The bill amended Florida Statutes §§468.432 and 468.436 to close both re-entry paths.

The three enforcement additions in HB 913 (2025).

The 10-year industry bar. When DBPR revokes a CAM license, the revoked licensee is barred from holding any position at any Florida community association management company for 10 years from the date of revocation. "Any position" means employee, officer, director, or equity owner. The bar is categorical: the manager cannot work around it by founding a new firm or joining one under a different license holder.

The mandatory DBPR notification. When DBPR issues a revocation order, the department must identify every association that contracted with the revoked manager's firm within the prior five years and send written notice to each association's board president by certified mail. The board does not depend on the management firm to self-disclose a credential problem. The state delivers the notice directly.

The contract termination right. An association whose manager's license is suspended or revoked may cancel its management contract immediately by written notice, without incurring any early-termination fee or penalty, regardless of what the contract provides. A management agreement that would otherwise run for two more years with a termination-fee clause cannot be enforced against a board that is acting on a state revocation notice.

What the revocation track looked like in practice.

In September 2026, DBPR issued a final order revoking the license of a South Florida community association manager following an administrative proceeding that documented eight complaints filed between 2022 and 2025 across multiple associations. The complaints included unauthorized transfers from association operating accounts, misappropriation of reserve funds, and failure to prepare the annual financial disclosures owed to unit owners under Florida Statute §718.111.

The final order imposed $97,500 in administrative fines and $24,750 in investigative costs, for a total of $122,250. The order's findings of fact described the manager's pattern of conduct as "a true danger to the public" and cited the repetition across multiple buildings as the basis for revocation rather than a lesser sanction. Under HB 913, revocation automatically activated the 10-year industry bar on the day the order was signed.

NBC Miami reported on the enforcement action in a September 2026 investigative piece. Unit owners interviewed for that story described receiving the DBPR certified-mail notice before they had heard anything from the management firm. Several boards had already voted to exercise the 60-day contract termination right by the time the story published.

How the New York comparison runs.

New York requires no license to manage a condominium or cooperative. There is no state examination, no continuing education requirement, no surety bond, and no credential issued by any agency for individuals performing management functions. The Real Property Law and the Martin Act together regulate offering plans and sponsor conduct, but neither creates a credential system for management of the building after the sponsor relinquishes control to unit owners.

The absence of a licensing regime has concrete consequences in New York. In a 2024 proceeding, the New York Attorney General's office reached a settlement with a Manhattan co-op's managing agent that included a $23,500 payment and a monitoring requirement. The firm returned to management operations at the conclusion of the monitoring period. There was no license to revoke, no industry bar to impose, and no mechanism to notify other buildings that had engaged the same firm. The AG's enforcement authority under the Martin Act runs to offering plans; post-offering governance misconduct by a managing agent falls outside that authority's reach.

S.71 and the 2027 session.

Senate bill S.71, sponsored by Senator Brian Kavanagh, would create a managing agent registration requirement for New York buildings with more than six units. Registrants would be required to disclose any criminal conviction, civil judgment, or professional discipline in any state within the prior seven years. The bill does not create a license to revoke or anything comparable to Florida's industry-bar mechanism. Registration is a floor, not a ceiling, and S.71 is the floor.

S.71 has not received a committee hearing in any of the nine sessions in which versions of the bill have been introduced. No Assembly companion bill has been filed for the 2027 session. The bill sits in the Senate Judiciary Committee, where it has sat in every previous session.

Florida's current enforcement framework arrived through a 37-year sequence of additions. Chapter 468 established the CAM license in 1988. HB 1021 in 2022 strengthened the structural inspection track but did not extend enforcement tools to management conduct. HB 913 in 2025 addressed that gap by adding the industry bar, the mandatory notification, and the contract termination right. New York has not completed the first step in that sequence. S.71 is the first step, and it still has no Assembly companion for the session that begins in January 2027.

The CCNYC managing-agent licensure gap page tracks the full legislative history of S.71 and the Assembly companion-bill gap across sessions.

Bottom line.

Florida's September 2026 revocation order is a demonstration of what a licensing regime produces when a manager accumulates eight complaints across multiple buildings: a documented proceeding, a public order, mandatory state notice to every affected association, a 10-year bar from the industry, and a contract termination right the boards could exercise without hiring a lawyer. New York unit owners whose managing agent commits comparable conduct have one path available: a civil lawsuit at their own expense, against an entity that holds no state credential and owes no registration to any agency.

A "Shadow DBPR for NY" is not a request for a new bureaucracy. It is a request that New York do what Florida did in 1988: require a license, assign an existing agency to administer it, and build the enforcement track from there. S.71 is that starting point. It needs an Assembly sponsor. Use the letter tool on this site to tell your Assembly member.

Primary sources: Florida HB 913 (2025), Fla. Legislature; Fla. Stat. §§468.432, 468.436 (2025 ed.); NBC Miami investigative report, September 2026; NY Senate S.71 (2025–26 session).

Companion resources: Florida HB 913 and New York's transparency gap · Managing-agent licensure gap · Write your Assembly member about S.71 · National comparison index