Out of 22M Floridians, 10M live in an HOA, and CEOMC member companies manage 6.5M of those, about 65% of the market. So what does it take to shift the perception of an entire industry?

In this episode of Guilty By Association, host Megan Woytek and special co-host Catie Marks sit down with Mark Anderson, Executive Director of CEOMC Florida, for a behind-the-scenes look at the 2026 Florida legislative session, the fights that almost ended community association management as we know it, and the playbook that turned a small coalition of management companies into one of the most underestimated political forces in the state.

Chapter Breakdown:

• 00:00 - 03:23 - Intro
• 03:23 - 06:20 - The HOA UPL Battle
• 06:20 -12:03 - David vs Goliath
• 12:03 - 16:21 - Defund the HOA?
• 16:21 - 19:00 - Fixing the Industry Perception
• 19:00 - 24:51 - Voting & Getting Involved
• 24:51 - 28:32 - How to Get Started TODAY

Guest Mark Anderson — Executive Director, CEO-MC Florida. For more than a decade, Mark has led the coalition representing 60+ community association management companies and 6.5 million of the 10 million Floridians who live in an HOA. His advocacy work helped pass the 2013 legislation that ended the Unlicensed Practice of Law (UPL) threat against the industry, and he's been instrumental in shaping every major piece of Florida HOA legislation since.

Follow Mark:

• LinkedIn
• Mark Anderson Governmental Consulting
• Learn more & get involved: info@ConsultAnderson.com

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Mark, welcome to Guilty By Association.

Mark: Thank you. Good to be here.

Megan: I'm so glad you're here. So we're interviewing you, but I am so excited to have a special co-host over here — Katie Marks. You are my co-host. You are not a guest. Tell the people what you are doing now.

Katie: Well, hello to the people. I'm Katie Marks. Some of you may know me — I recently joined Vantaca as Director of Strategic Relationships and Industry Advisor.

Megan: The reason I wanted Katie on this episode is because she has such deep knowledge of Florida legislature and she has been involved in CEO-MC for quite some time. And she has a passion for this specific part of community association management — lobbying for management companies. I've been on the board with Mark for five years at CEO-MC.

Katie: So we've seen some things.

Megan: What have you seen as far as the perception of HOA management over the years?

Mark: It's an interesting question, because there are really two ways legislators look at this issue set. They see the management companies — we have a definable, clear identity now after a number of years. And they see the associations themselves. Initially when I got hired to do this work, there was almost no perception of the management company at all — only a negative perception of the associations.

Megan: Like, "what's a management company?"

Mark: Right. They thought we were just here to collect dues and send mean letters. They'd think it was commercial property management or single-family. So once we started talking to them, we explained what we do — and we formed our image around the estoppel issue. Then the UPL thing hit, and that really accelerated.

Megan: Explain to people what UPL is.

Mark: UPL is the Unlicensed Practice of Law. Our industry was getting accused of it by some lawyers who thought what we were doing was something only they should be allowed to do — sending letters, collecting dues, providing estoppel certificates, contract management. There was even a letter to the Bar that said declaring a quorum at a board meeting was something only a lawyer should be allowed to do. So if you have a five-member board and three of five is a quorum — only a lawyer can figure that out. It was crazy.

I looked it up: in the statute, it's a third-degree felony to be found guilty of practicing law. We had to defend ourselves to the State Supreme Court — no judge, no mediator, no arbitrator. Much more expensive.

Katie: Imagine what associations would have paid if attorneys had to call a quorum.

Katie: No matter what state — Georgia, Indiana, we'll get to that — it's such a David and Goliath battle. Mark is going up against the Florida Realtors, the Florida Bar — they have so much more bankroll than the little association management lobby.

Mark: And to be fair to the Bar, this wasn't every lawyer. It was a few lawyers who took this up and the Bar got sucked into it. We work very well with a lot of lawyers — we need them. But their regulatory body got sucked into it and it became lawyers vs. CAMs. We won, but we also formed a much better relationship with that profession.

Megan: A lot of legislators didn't realize the difference between a management company and an actual community association — they were lumping everything together. And over time, anything in our industry with a negative connotation has typically been a single self-managed association. It's not always a management company being a bad actor. So management companies need proper representation in lobbying efforts — because what we do holistically is drastically misunderstood.

Mark: Yes. The UPL thing was a springboard into getting folks to understand what we do as a business. We told them what we weren't, but it gave us a chance to show them who we were. That was really the year we elevated the profession — we put practice standards into statute that had never been there before, we put in protections for owners. We supported as an industry the reforms that elevated us. CEO-MC became a name to be reckoned with. Lawmakers got our first phone call because they knew we had our finger on the pulse of folks living in those neighborhoods.

Katie: You also defeated a sitting Senate President. That's pretty remarkable.

Mark: We were winning the battles on estoppel certificates, on the firms, on the industry — but we were losing the bigger war. We were allowing perceptions about exorbitant fees. Some were saying you're charging too much. Others had a more nefarious agenda — "we don't think you should be paid for it, it should be a free service" — so here's 19 things you have to do in addition to giving us the balance.

Katie: And if the balance is wrong, there's no protection to you. You just write the check for the difference.

Mark: They thought it was just lining management companies' pockets. But when we started explaining the volume — there's more to it than that — the lawmakers got it. If you get it wrong, the buyer and seller are messed up in their transaction. There's liability for us if we get it wrong.

Megan: I haven't yet seen a legislator — except this session, where we had so many friendlies — champion a good piece of policy for our businesses.

Mark: True.

Mark: This bill gets introduced. The 2026 session is the culmination of a lot of bad perceptions. We have a lawmaker we have a great relationship with — Juan Forrest. He was going through major corruption problems in his own HOA. He lives in a place where people right now are residing in prison for what happened in that association. So in his experience, HOAs are awful and they should go away.

Megan: And for his constituents — his whole area has some 100,000 voters in that community.

Mark: Then we figured out: why is this community so troubled? It was self-managed. There was no accountability. Florida doesn't regulate HOAs. They regulate condos, but not HOAs. There's no enforcement arm for the state to enforce compliance. So unless you have a management company with a license at risk — and a reason to therefore care about the rules — you're in a very bad spot.

So we said, let's try to change your point of view. What if you had a management company in there? What if we could provide quality, good-actor associations from which your people can choose? They're managed by one of our companies today and it's working well — because they have a reason to care.

Katie: There was another case recently — embezzlement, no crazy dollar amounts but should-the-woman-work-for-a-management-company situation. Actually the CEO of the management company reported the fraud. The association is going to be made whole because that management company had proper insurance. That woman is going to lose her license forever.

Mark: There are bad actors everywhere, but you can protect yourself.

Megan: It's unfortunate that the bad actors are the ones who get all the bills introduced. Use your powers for good, not evil.

Mark: They do get all the bills introduced — and they're also why we have this bad perception out there.

Katie: We don't have stories in the news about the management company that reduced collections by 90% and stopped the community from going into receivership.

Megan: That is something I'm highly passionate about — how do we fix the perception of this industry? Just the fact that you have people in the Florida legislature starting to understand community management — not just HOAs, actual community management — that is a huge step.

Mark: We said: rather than just talk about our profession in the context of associations, we should be talking about ourselves as a business — legitimate Florida-based, family-owned and operated businesses who pay taxes, employ people, provide opportunities. Some of these companies are generational legacies. We need to tell our story on our terms. That's what I love about advocacy — it lets you take more control over your message and not just be reacting.

On the association side, there are major gaps. They're being too defined by their problems, but they're also not doing some things they should be doing.

Megan: How do you stay on top of all this stuff before it gets to paper?

Katie: Pretty awesome that you can have a sitting governor who knows you, and our organization, and our purpose.

Mark: And he was our bill sponsor. That's part of what helps change perception — getting involved. It's political. You can't avoid it. The only way to understand where these people are coming from is to roll up your sleeves and get involved at the campaign level.

Katie: The thing you do that's so good is explain the volume CEO-MC brings. About 65% of the market — 10 million people live in an association in Florida out of 22 million; we represent about 6.5 million of them.

Mark: People's ears perk up. We break it down by county and district. We have these packets — by neighborhood name, number of homes, the communities managed by our member companies. At the bottom is the total number of homes. In some districts it's north of 30,000–40,000 voters. Every lawmaker goes through those lists: "Oh, you've got that one, you've got that one." They want to help people who live in their district.

When we endorse a candidate, we pass that on to our communities. We say: these are folks we have vetted. Vote however you want. We've moved the needle.

Katie: Aside from being great for the industry — it's so great as an American citizen to realize you can walk into the Capitol and be part of the lawmaking process. It's more than just I'm Just a Bill on Capitol Hill.

Megan: I thought it was going to be booths with vendors and a nice dinner. Then it turned into "we're doing real work and making meaningful relationships." I love the crossover that our vendors are out there lobbying for us.

Katie: I will never forget you in there with a man, putting in background, talking to them about estoppels and why this is ridiculous.

Megan: I feel passionately about the success of management companies specifically. Not to downplay happy homeowners — but a good management company makes happy owners. Good management companies are not afraid to do this hard work and lobby for their own interests.

Katie: Those are aligned with the community's interest. Management companies are altruistic — we are in the trenches with these people. A healthier community makes a healthier company.

Mark: That's how we started CEO-MC. As we did things for the industry, we realized these are also things that are good for associations. We've formed a great partnership with the association side because we manage them, we interact with them, they're your clients.

2026 was a year where we as an industry once again stepped up and said: associations do have a problem. We don't run away from the bad perception. We undertook polling — a real scientific poll by a reputable polling company. The results were off the charts for people who like living in their own community association. For people they didn't live in, perceptions weren't so good — but the ones they live in, they said: "my community is better than your community."

Megan: Good for them. That's hometown stuff. "That may be messed up — not here. Here we are good."

Megan: If a management company is looking to get involved and they don't have a CEO-MC, how do they start?

Mark: Go online and find out who your lawmakers are. Make an appointment with that legislator. They will meet with you. They want to plead, they want to get something solved.

Katie: Also — there are like-minded business organizations you can join even if you don't have a CEO-MC in your state. See your lawmaker, or join the Chamber. Let other like-minded peers know who you are. There's power in numbers.

Katie: It has created this community where we're all fighting together — CEOs of adversarial companies, all friends when we're in that room.

Mark: Fingers crossed, there hasn't been any major problems with our clients. There could be — but where there is one, we have a way to solve it. Whereas the poor homeowners living out there in the half of the market that isn't managed in Florida — what are they going to do?

Katie: Let's take the show on the road, Mark. We've got a movement to start.

Megan: This is a perfect spot to wrap. The one thing I hope people get from an episode like this — get involved in the political process. I never thought I'd be the person saying that, but you have sparked such an interest in me, and I think you do that for a lot of people who are uneducated in how it all works.

Katie: He makes it so approachable. It's not scary. It feels like a normal part of life.

Mark: Scary too. We operated for 30 years without it.

Megan: You do such great work. Vantaca loves being a partner with CEO-MC.

Mark: Thanks for having me.

Megan: Katie, thanks for being my sidekick.