Declaration, Articles, Bylaws, Rules: Which One Wins

By Carlos Castellano · Current as of August 28, 2026

Your association runs on four kinds of document, and almost every duty in Florida law hands the details back to them. Read any statute in this area and you hit the same phrase: unless the governing documents provide otherwise. New directors are told to read the governing documents, and a new condominium director has to certify in writing that they did. Nobody tells them which document is which, or what happens when two of them disagree. Here is the order, and where it comes from.

The four documents, in the order they control

1. The statutes, and they are not optional

Chapter 720 for homeowners’ associations, Chapter 718 for condominiums, and Chapter 617, the not-for-profit corporation act, under both. A provision in any association document that contradicts a statute does not survive the contradiction, and the board cannot consent its way out of one.

The clearest illustration is in the condominium bylaws section. Section 718.112(2) lists what the bylaws must provide for, and then says that if they do not do so, they “shall be deemed to include” those provisions anyway. The statute writes itself into your documents when your documents are silent. That is what sitting above them looks like in practice.

2. The declaration

The declaration is the document that created the community and binds the land itself. For a condominium it is the instrument that creates the condominium, recorded in the county where the land sits; the units come into existence when it is recorded. For an HOA it is the recorded covenants that subject the property to the association’s jurisdiction, which is why the obligations run with the parcel and follow it to the next buyer.

Because it is recorded and runs with the land, it is the hardest of your documents to change and the strongest of the ones you control. It is also where you look first for anything about the property itself: what an owner owns, what the association maintains, what the parcels or units may be used for.

3. The articles of incorporation, then the bylaws

The articles create the corporation. The bylaws run it: meetings, quorum, officers, elections, terms. In a condominium the bylaws are an exhibit to the recorded declaration, and an amendment to the articles or bylaws is not valid unless it is recorded identifying where the declaration is recorded.

This rung is the one place the ordering is stated flatly in statute rather than assembled. Section 617.0206 says the bylaws may contain any provision for managing the corporation “not inconsistent with law or the articles of incorporation.” Law first, then articles, then bylaws, in one sentence.

4. Board rules and policies

Rules are the only layer the board can create on its own, and they are the weakest. They cannot contradict anything above them, and a rule that does is unenforceable to that extent no matter how properly the board adopted it.

Where the order actually comes from

Worth being straight about, because most summaries state the hierarchy as though a statute recites it. No single Florida statute ranks all four documents. The word “conflict” does not appear in the definitions, amendment, or bylaws sections of either chapter. The order above is assembled from provisions that each do part of the work: 617.0206 for law over articles over bylaws; the recording and exhibit mechanics that make the declaration the senior instrument; the deemed-included sentence in 718.112(2); and the amendment thresholds, which set a higher bar for the documents that sit higher.

The practical consequence is that the clean cases are clear and the close ones are not. A rule that flatly contradicts the declaration is an easy call. A bylaw provision that merely sits awkwardly beside one, or two declaration sections that can be read together, is the kind of question boards should put to the association’s attorney rather than settle by vote.

What it takes to change each one

Two condominium amendment mechanics are easy to get wrong and both are in section 718.110. A proposed amendment has to carry the full text of the provision being changed, with new words underlined and deleted words struck through, unless the rewrite is extensive enough that the markup would hinder understanding, in which case it carries a substantial-rewording notation instead. And nonmaterial errors in the amendment process do not invalidate an otherwise proper amendment.

Which document answers which question

If you are a new director

Get all four, in current form, before your first meeting: the recorded declaration with every recorded amendment, the articles, the bylaws, and whatever rules the board has adopted. The recorded set lives in the county’s official records, and your association has to make its official records available to you.

The amendments are the part people skip. A declaration from 1998 with eleven recorded amendments is a different document than the one in the binder, and the binder is usually the one being handed around.

Condominium directors have a specific reason to do this properly: Section 718.112(2)(d)5.b. requires you to certify in writing to the secretary that you have read the declaration, articles, bylaws, and current written policies. That is a signed statement about these four documents, which is covered in the written certification.

Related: what each officer actually does, the fiduciary duty these documents sit inside, and how to get records from your association.