The bill that died in March

Hi again. Most weeks I write about a rule that changed. This one's about two that didn't — and are still being reported as though they had.

It goes the same way every year. Somebody publishes a legislative preview in January, when the bills are freshly filed and everything still looks likely. Google indexes it. Then in March the bills die quietly in a subcommittee, and nobody goes back to update the January article. Two years on it's still sitting in the search results, telling you a rule changed that never did.

Both are circulating right now. Every bill behind them died on the same day: March 13.

The one you've probably seen is the five-day pay-or-vacate notice. SB 716 and its House companion HB 811 would have moved the nonpayment window from three days to five. Both died in committee. Florida's three-day notice is unchanged — three days excluding Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays, counted after the demand is delivered. We wrote up why that one didn't become law when the "effective July 1" claims started spreading.

The second is newer, and it's the one that worries me. HB 107 — Termination of Rental Agreement by Victim of Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Violence, or Stalking — also died on March 13, and it's being written up as effective this summer. Among other things it would have let a victim end a lease early with documentation, and barred eviction on the basis of being a victim. Neither is Florida law today.

This is the one where "it didn't pass" is a genuinely dangerous takeaway, and it's the easy one to reach — so let me be precise about what still binds you.

If the property takes part in a federal housing program, the Violence Against Women Act already applies — and the covered list runs far past vouchers and public housing. It includes project-based Section 8, LIHTC, HOME, HOPWA, Sections 202 and 811, and USDA rural. A covered tenant, in HUD's words, "may not be denied admission to, denied assistance under, terminated from participation in, or evicted from the housing on the basis or as a direct result of the fact that the applicant or tenant is or has been a victim."

Not in one of those programs? You're still not unconstrained. HUD has taken the position since 2011 that evicting a tenant over her abuser's conduct can be sex discrimination under the Fair Housing Act — including zero-tolerance criminal-activity policies, which HUD says "may have a disparate impact on women because they are the overwhelming majority of domestic violence victims." That reaches ordinary private rentals.

There is a carve-out from the Fair Housing Act, and it's narrower than it sounds: an owner renting out a single house, with no more than three of them, and no agent involved (42 U.S.C. 3603(b)(1)). It disappears the moment a broker or a property manager touches the deal — which for most owners means it never applied in the first place. The one exemption that does survive hiring a manager is for an owner living in one unit of a two-to-four-unit building (3603(b)(2)). What died in Tallahassee was a state remedy; the federal exposure was never on the ballot.

And in Orange County, the Tenant Bill of Rights lists "actual or perceived status as a victim of domestic violence, dating violence, or stalking" as a protected class — still posted on the county's own page. How far state preemption reaches into a local anti-discrimination ordinance isn't settled. Don't read "no state law" as "no rule in my county."

If this is live in one of your units right now, it's an attorney call before you serve anything. It's the fact pattern most likely to turn a possession case into a discrimination complaint.

Here's what I'd actually do this week. It takes about ten minutes.

Pull out the three-day notice you'd serve tomorrow and read the number printed on it. If you bought a lease packet or downloaded a form since spring — or if someone updated your paperwork "for the new law" — check it. A form that says five days gives away two days you don't owe on every nonpayment file you open. And a form rewritten around a bill that never passed may have other invented provisions in it, so read the whole page, not just the number.

Two more things while you're in there. Check the weekend math: three days excluding weekends and holidays is rarely three dates on a calendar, and a notice that expires too early is the one that gets your case dismissed. And check how the form says to deliver it; a spring-bought template is as likely to be wrong there as on the day count, and emailing a notice only works if your tenant signed the addendum the statute requires.

If someone else serves your notices, your whole task is asking which form they're on. And if you own outside Florida, don't port the answer — three days excluding weekends is a Florida number.

The habit matters more than either example. When a source says a Florida rule changed, the bill page takes thirty seconds to open and shows the last action in plain language. "Died in Judiciary" isn't ambiguous.

Since we're on notices — the three-day is for nonpayment only, and reaching for the wrong one restarts your case from zero. Every lease violation that isn't rent runs through FS 83.56(2), and it splits in two. Something the tenant can fix — the unauthorized pet, the boat in the driveway — gets seven days to cure. Something they shouldn't get to fix, and the statute's examples are intentional damage and continued unreasonable disturbance, gets seven days to vacate, no cure offered. Both are seven days, which is exactly why they get confused; the difference is whether the clock is a chance or a countdown.

A repeat within twelve months drops the cure option entirely — the statute lets you file "without delivering a subsequent notice" at all. Whichever you serve, name the specific noncompliance on it; "lease violation" alone gets dismissed no matter how well you counted. (Simply ending a month-to-month is neither of these; that's FS 83.57 and thirty days.) Our seven-day cure-or-quit guide has the wording.

The rate, for anyone tracking it: the 30-year fixed came in at 6.65% on August 20, down two basis points for a second straight week after a five-week climb. A year ago it was 6.58%, so we're still a little above last year — but the direction finally turned.

Two others worth your time. If you're shopping South Tampa, we published a Hyde Park investment profile — the historic district's rent-to-price picture is unusual, and at 6.65% money the entry math is the whole question. There's also what a landlord can and can't change mid-lease, which comes up more often than it should.

One favour, if you're up for it: if you find a five-day form in your own file, hit reply and tell me where it came from. I'm trying to work out which vendors are shipping them, and the answer would be useful to everyone reading this.

Ten minutes with your notice template, before you need it.

— The True North Team