LHT Property Management · 2026-11-09

Florida Landlord Law Changes Owners Need to Know for 2026: One New Felony, One Passed Tax Amendment, and a 5-Day Notice That Doesn't Exist

Most “new Florida landlord laws for 2026” lists get the year wrong in both directions. They recycle 2025 rules as if they were new, and they present bills that died in committee as if they passed.

Here is the sorted version — what actually changed in 2026, what voters just decided, what did not change, and what you should check in your own lease paperwork before your next renewal. This is general information for owners, not legal advice; for an eviction, a deposit dispute, or an unusual set of facts, use a Florida landlord-tenant attorney.

1. Just decided: Amendment 3 passed — and the landlord half starts January 1, 2027

Florida voters approved Amendment 3 on November 3, 2026. Unofficial returns published by the Florida Division of Elections show 4,905,633 votes in favor, or 62%, and 3,006,325 opposed, or 38% — clearing the 60% approval a constitutional amendment requires. The totals remain unofficial pending certification.

Two halves, and only one of them is yours if the property is a rental:

• The homestead half does not apply to rentals. The exemption for non-school property taxes on a homesteaded home rises to $150,000 in 2027 and $250,000 in 2028, with inflation adjustments after that. A rental carries no homestead exemption, so this half affects your own home, not your investment property. Note also that people who were not Florida residents on December 31, 2026 will initially receive the existing exemption, with the expanded benefit beginning later — relocating buyers should not assume the full new exemption on day one.
• The non-homestead half is the landlord half. The annual cap on assessed-value growth for non-homestead property — rentals, second homes, commercial property — drops from 10% to 5%, effective January 1, 2027.

What that cap change is worth compounds. Illustrative arithmetic only — no millage rate assumed, and your bill depends on your county and your property:

• Take a rental assessed at $400,000 today, rising at the cap every year.
• At a 10% cap, five years of maximum growth takes the assessment to about $644,204.
• At a 5% cap, the same five years takes it to about $510,513.
• That is roughly $133,691 less assessed value exposed to tax in year five — before any millage is applied.

Two cautions, same as last week: the cap limits how fast assessed value can climb, it does not freeze or cut your current bill, and local governments facing revenue pressure may look to millage rates or fees. A state economic analysis cited in election coverage estimated nearly $5 billion in lost local-government revenue in the first fiscal year, rising toward nearly $12 billion annually once fully implemented — those are estimates, not realized losses, but they explain why the local response is worth watching through 2027.

Owner action: do not re-budget 2026 taxes — nothing changes on this year's bill. Do model 2027 renewals with slower assessment growth, and watch your county's 2027 millage discussion before you promise a tenant a flat renewal price.

2. New since October 1, 2026: faking your way into a rental is a felony

The one landlord bill that actually passed in the 2026 session is HB 1293, Chapter 2026-143, signed June 12, 2026 and effective October 1, 2026. It passed the House 110–0 and the Senate 34–0.

It creates a new statute, §817.537, making it a third-degree felony — punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine — to enter into and take possession of a residential dwelling by knowingly and willfully:

• making a materially false written statement about your identity in a rental application;
• presenting forged, fictitious, or counterfeit documents to the landlord — the statute expressly includes a driver license, an identification card, a bank statement, or a paystub; or
• impersonating the person in whose name the application was submitted.

The provision owners will actually use is in the eviction statute. §83.56(2)(a) now lists fraudulent entry as noncompliance so serious the tenant gets no chance to cure it: the landlord delivers a written termination notice and the occupant has seven days to vacate — in the statute's words, “regardless of whether criminal proceedings have commenced.” You do not have to wait for a criminal charge to use the ground.

Limits worth knowing: HB 1293 carries no retroactivity clause, so the conservative read is that it covers fraud on or after October 1, 2026 — an occupant who got in earlier goes the ordinary route, and you should ask your eviction attorney before serving anything. And the statute does not say what evidence a county court will require to prove a forged document when no charge has been filed. Keep your screening file: the application, the documents as presented, and your verification notes are now potential evidence, not just paperwork.

3. What did NOT change: there is no 5-day nonpayment notice

This is the most repeated error in 2026 landlord roundups, so it gets its own section.

SB 716, which would have stretched the nonpayment notice from three business days to five, died in the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 13, 2026, when the session ended. The House version died the same day. HB 107, which would have added eviction protections for domestic-violence survivors, also died March 13, in the Civil Justice and Claims Subcommittee. Neither is law.

Your process is therefore unchanged: for unpaid rent you still serve the 3-business-day notice under §83.56, counting from the day after delivery and excluding Saturdays, Sundays, and legal holidays. If a national blog, a software default, or a remote helper tells you to wait five days, that is two extra days of lost rent built on a bill that does not exist.

4. Not new, but now in their first full year: flood disclosure and e-mail notices

Two rules that show up on “2026” lists actually took effect in 2025. They are fully enforceable now — and if your lease template predates them, you are a year late, not early.

• Flood disclosure — §83.512, effective October 1, 2025. For any residential lease of one year or longer, the landlord must give the tenant a separate written flood disclosure before signing: whether the landlord knows of past flooding that damaged the unit, whether a flood-damage insurance claim has been filed, and whether flood-damage assistance has been received. Skip it, and a tenant who later suffers a major flood loss can terminate the lease.
• E-mail delivery of notices — §83.505, effective July 1, 2025. Statutory notices may go by e-mail — but only if both sides sign a written addendum using the statutory form, with valid e-mail addresses on file. No addendum, no valid e-mail notice. You cannot simply start e-mailing pay-or-quit notices and assume they count.

5. The standing rules that still cost owners the most when they slip

None of these changed in 2026. All of them still generate disputes:

• Deposits run on a 15/30/15 clock (§83.49). Return the deposit within 15 days after the tenancy ends if you make no claim, or send the written claim notice within 30 days — by certified mail to the tenant's last known address, or by e-mail if you both signed the §83.505 addendum. The tenant then has 15 days to object in writing. Miss the 30-day window and the claim against the deposit is forfeited; you can still sue for damages, but only after returning the deposit.
• A fee can replace a deposit — under conditions (§83.491, since July 1, 2023). A landlord may offer a nonrefundable fee instead of a deposit, but if it is offered to anyone it must be offered to every new tenant on the same premises, the tenant's choice cannot be used to approve or deny the application, the fee cannot rise during the lease, and the tenant can switch back to a conventional deposit at any time.
• Squatters are a sheriff matter, not an eviction (§82.036, since July 1, 2024). For a qualifying unauthorized occupant of a residential dwelling — not a current or former tenant — the owner can file a verified complaint with the county sheriff and have the occupant removed without first filing a lawsuit. A parallel process for commercial property (§82.037) followed in 2025. Self-help — changing locks or shutting off utilities on your own — remains prohibited.
• Tallahassee sets the rules, not city hall (§83.425). Since July 2023, no Florida city or county may add its own deposit, notice, screening, or fee requirements, and local rent control is banned. There is also no statewide rent cap — none passed in the 2026 session, whatever a roundup you read may claim.

A five-minute compliance check for Tampa Bay owners

1. Lease dated before October 2025? Confirm it carries the §83.512 flood disclosure for any term of a year or longer.
2. E-mailing notices? Confirm a signed §83.505 addendum is in the file for that tenant. If it is not, deliver on paper.
3. Screening file complete? Keep the application and identity documents as presented — after HB 1293, they matter beyond move-in day.
4. Deposit calendar set? The 15-day return and 30-day claim deadlines should be diarised at move-out, not remembered.
5. 2027 tax model updated? Use the 5% non-homestead cap for planning, hold millage as an open question, and do not bank a specific dollar saving yet.

Across the roughly 98 doors we manage (82 long-term and 16 short-term), this is the checklist we run when a law changes: sort what passed from what was proposed, update the template only where the statute actually moved, and leave everything else alone.

If you would rather hand that sorting to someone local, start with a free rental analysis at tampapropertymanagementlht.com/owners or call us at (813) 605-7000. Our long-term management is currently priced at 9% of rent collected or $200/month, whichever is less, with placement at 100% of one month's rent and lease renewals at $495. We're at The Shops at Wiregrass, 28210 Paseo Drive Ste 106, Wesley Chapel, FL 33543.

Own a home you are weighing as a short-term rental instead? See how our vacation homes present to guests — and what direct booking looks like on that side — at airbnbrent.com.

Sources

All figures and legal statements were read from these pages on Nov 9, 2026: WRE News, Florida Amendment 3 Passes: Property-Tax Changes Explained (Nov 4, 2026) · True North Managed, 2026 Florida Landlord Laws: What Changed, What Didn't · Ludwin Law Group, New Florida Laws Effective October 1, 2026 · NaplesEd, Florida Landlord-Tenant Law (2026). The Amendment 3 assessment example is our own arithmetic on a hypothetical $400,000 assessment growing at each cap for five years, with no millage rate assumed.

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