Guide
What happens if work on your house was never permitted?
An open or missing permit is a records problem, and Florida law has a route out of every version of it. An owner may close a permit someone else applied for, a building department may close a substantially finished permit without issuing a new one, and an arms-length buyer cannot be fined for a permit a previous owner abandoned.
How do I find out whether the work was permitted?
Search the building department that had jurisdiction where the house sits, which is often not the county. Unincorporated Orange County parcels are in OC FastTrack, and the county states its public search tools are open to anyone without an account. Osceola County runs an Online Permit Center, and Seminole County's Building Division holds what it issued. If the address is inside a city limit, start with that city. Apopka runs a Building Safety Division, Ocoee runs a Building Division, and St. Cloud publishes its own permit information, so a county-only search comes back clean on work a city permitted.
Search by address and by parcel identification number, because a renovation filed under an old lot number or a previous owner's spelling will not match the street address you type. When the online record is thin, the department's public records staff can pull the paper file, and the request moves faster with the address, the parcel ID, and a description of what you are looking for.
What does an open permit actually do to a sale?
An open permit is a record that a job started under a permit and never received a final inspection. It reaches the closing table two ways: through the municipal lien and permit search the closing agent orders, and through the title work when a notice of commencement was recorded and never terminated. Neither is fatal to the contract, and both have to be cleared or accounted for before a lender funds.
Section 713.135, Florida Statutes, is where the second one comes from. When the direct contract exceeds $5,000, the permit applicant has to file a copy of the recorded notice of commencement with the issuing authority, and without that filing the authority or a private provider may not perform or approve subsequent inspections. The Florida Building Code sets the clock on the permit itself: it becomes invalid when the authorized work is not commenced within 6 months of issuance, or when the work is suspended or abandoned for 6 months after it started.
Can I close a permit somebody else pulled?
Yes. Section 553.79(16) says a property owner may close a building permit regardless of whether the owner is the person listed on the application, by retaining the original contractor, by hiring a different appropriately licensed contractor, or by qualifying as an owner-builder. The replacement contractor is not liable for defects in the work the original contractor performed and is liable only for the work he or she performs, which is the clause that makes a second contractor willing to take the job.
Two other routes skip the contractor entirely. When a permit is expired and its requirements have been substantially completed, as the local enforcement agency determines, the agency may close it without a new building permit, and the work required to close it is judged against the building code in effect when the agency received the original application. Separately, the agency may close a permit 6 years after issuance even with no final inspection, if it determines that no apparent safety hazards exist. Both are the agency's call, so you ask in writing with the permit number and a description of what was built.
What if the work was never permitted at all?
Then nothing is open, and the question becomes whether a permit was required. Since July 1, 2026, section 553.79(1)(g) requires a local government that issues building permits to exempt the owner of a single-family dwelling, or that owner's contractor, from obtaining a permit for work valued at less than $7,500. The exemption does not reach electrical, plumbing, structural, mechanical, or gas work, and it does not reach property partly or entirely in a flood hazard area as the Florida Building Code defines it. Claiming it means a written request to the local enforcement agency with a contract or other documentation showing the nature and value of the work.
Work that did need a permit gets permitted after the fact. The department opens a permit on finished construction, and an inspector has to be able to see what is behind the finish, which can mean opening a wall, a ceiling, or a soffit. Budget the opening and the repair, not only the permit fee.
Do I have to tell the buyer about it?
If you know about it, yes. Florida's rule from Johnson v. Davis, 480 So. 2d 625 (Fla. 1985), puts a seller who knows of facts materially affecting the value of the property that are not readily observable and not known to the buyer under a duty to disclose them. Construction nobody permitted is the textbook example, and an as-is contract does not remove the duty.
Disclosure is also the cheaper position. A buyer who hears about an enclosed carport from the seller in week one asks what it takes to close the permit. A buyer who hears it from an appraiser in week five asks for a credit and an extension.
Does an unclosed permit follow the buyer?
Not as a penalty. Section 553.79(17) says a local enforcement agency may not deny issuance of a building permit to, issue a notice of violation to, or fine, penalize, sanction, or assess fees against an arms-length purchaser of a property for value solely because a building permit applied for by a previous owner was not closed. The agency keeps every right and remedy it has against the owner and the contractor listed on that permit.
One more thing worth knowing before you call someone back to finish the job: under section 489.128, a contract entered into on or after October 1, 1990, by an unlicensed contractor is unenforceable in law or in equity by that unlicensed contractor.
From the Sell Ready Checklist
Permit history for past work
Pull the permit record for the roof, the windows, the panel, the water heater, and any addition. An open or missing permit on work already done is the item most likely to surface during inspection.
Repair and replacement receipts
Collect receipts and warranties for the roof, the HVAC, the water heater, the panel, and any re-pipe. A dated receipt settles an age question that would otherwise be answered by a guess.
Survey
The survey from your own purchase shows the lot lines, the easements, and anything that sits on them. A buyer's lender may want a newer one, but yours answers fence and setback questions on day one.
Talk to a listing agent
Talk to a listing agent
A licensed agent who works your area will call at the time you choose.
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Related guides
Sources
- Fla. Stat. 553.79, Building permits, exemptions, and closing a permit
- Fla. Stat. 713.135, Notice of commencement and building permits
- Fla. Stat. 489.128, Contracts entered into by unlicensed contractors
- Florida Building Code, Building, 2023 edition, section 105.4.1
- The Florida Bar Journal on the Johnson v. Davis disclosure duty
- Orange County OC FastTrack permitting and public search
- Osceola County Online Permit Center
- Seminole County Building Division, permitting
- City of Apopka Building Safety Division
- City of Ocoee Building Division
- City of St. Cloud permit information
Last updated September 16, 2026