Seminole County

Sell your house in Longwood

Longwood is a Seminole County city of 15,087 people at the 2020 census, with its own Building Division on West Church Avenue and a historic district that has been on the National Register since October 1990. Most of the housing went up in the 1970s and 1980s. The question that comes up here more than in most of the county is the sewer line, because the city has spent a decade of state grants moving neighborhoods off septic, and not every street has been reached.

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Pool and paver deck inside a screened lanai enclosure, two lounge chairs and palms against a low sun

Is my Longwood house on sewer or septic?

Check before you list, because the answer varies by street. Since 2015 the city has won septic abandonment grants with the St. Johns River Water Management District and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, starting with South Longwood and followed by eight more projects. The East Longwood Phase II project alone connected about 120 homes to central sewer.

Your utility bill is the quickest proof. A sewer charge from the city means a connection, and if the city bill carries none, confirm whether another provider bills sewer before you assume a tank. If you are on septic, find the original permit, the last pump-out receipt, and any repair record. County health department offices still permit and inspect septic systems in Florida, under rules the Department of Environmental Protection has administered since July 1, 2021.

Does the Wekiva springs protection area change a septic sale?

It can change what a buyer is allowed to do later. Seminole County identifies the Wekiwa and Rock Springs priority focus area as one of two springs-sensitive zones in the county, and publishes an address lookup to show whether a parcel is inside it.

Inside that area, a new septic system on a lot under one acre must be an enhanced nitrogen-reducing system rather than a conventional one, unless central sewer is or will be available within five years. State law in section 373.811 sets the same 65 percent nitrogen reduction standard. Existing systems do not have to change right away, but the county says a failing system may need to be upgraded. Run your address through the lookup, and tell a buyer what you find.

What can I change on a house in the Longwood Historic District?

More is reviewed here than anywhere else in the city. A single-family house in the district needs a paint permit, with a color elevation showing where each of up to five colors goes. A front-yard fence can be no more than 60 percent opaque, wood and vinyl fences must be white, and chain link is not allowed.

The district also has its own Historic District Code Book, and where it speaks to signs it overrides the general Longwood Development Code. If a past owner painted, fenced, or added on without the city's sign-off, find out now. The Building Division can tell you what is on file, and correcting it before the listing is simpler than explaining it after an offer.

What does a 1970s Longwood house need on paper?

Dates on the systems that wear out. Over half of the city's housing units were built in the 1970s and 1980s, so a buyer will expect the original roof, air conditioner, and water heater to be gone. What they want is the year of each replacement, with a receipt or a closed permit behind it.

Longwood's Building Division lets certain replacements, including air conditioning units, water heaters, windows and doors, and re-pipes, be inspected by video call. That is worth knowing if you are replacing something before you list, because it shortens the wait for the final inspection that closes the permit.

Seminole County

Neighborhoods in Longwood

Longwood Historic District
Listed on the National Register on October 5, 1990 and bounded by West Pine Avenue, South Milwee Street, Palmetto Avenue, and County Road 427. It counts 37 contributing structures, among them the Bradlee-McIntyre House and the hotel E.W. Henck built two years after laying the first rail line from Sanford to Orlando.
Sweetwater Oaks
An association community of about 1,400 homes with a Longwood address and a private beach on Lake Brantley, a short drive from Wekiwa Springs State Park.
East Longwood
The area of the city's septic abatement work. Phase II ran sewer lines and connected about 120 residential properties, and the city lists that phase as complete.
Sandalwood
A subdivision where the city lists the replacement of an asbestos-cement water main as under redesign.
Coventry and The Landings
Two subdivisions on the city's infrastructure list for replacement of their water service lines.

Housing stock to check

The 2020 to 2024 American Community Survey counted 6,757 housing units in Longwood, with a median year built of 1983. The 1970s account for 31 percent of them and the 1980s for 23 percent, so more than half the city went up in those two decades.
Close to 42 percent of units predate 1980, including about 8 percent from the 1950s. A house wired between 1965 and 1973 can have aluminum branch circuits, which federal testing tied to overheating at outlets and switches, so look at the wire stamp inside an outlet box or the panel.
About two thirds of units are detached houses and 12 percent are attached townhomes. Another 11 percent sit in buildings of 50 or more units, and about 1 percent are mobile homes.
A house from the 1980s sits inside the polybutylene years, and a house from any decade in an unsewered part of town has a septic tank and drainfield whose age and pump-out dates a buyer will want in writing.

Seminole County records and permits

Talk to a listing agent

Selling in Longwood? Start with one call.

Send your address and pick a morning, afternoon, or evening window. A licensed listing agent who works your area will call in it.

Request a call Read the Sell Ready Checklist

Before you list in Longwood

Longwood runs its permits through a SmartGov portal, and anyone holding a permit number can look it up there. For an address search or older paper records, ask the Building Division at 174 West Church Avenue. If the parcel record says unincorporated Seminole County instead, the file is with the county.
The city bills water, sewer, and residential garbage, but it says it may provide only some of those depending on where the property sits. List exactly which services come from the city and which do not, and say plainly whether the house is on sewer or septic.
If the house is in the Historic District, keep the paint permit with the painting invoice. Single-family houses there need a paint permit with a color elevation, which houses elsewhere in the city do not, and a buyer can ask whether the current colors were approved.
If the house is on septic, put the last inspection and pump-out dates next to the drainage check. EPA guidance is an inspection by a septic professional at least every three years and pumping typically every three to five, so a receipt older than that is the first gap a buyer will notice.

Gather

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.

Inspect

Grading, gutters, and the slab edge

Walk the perimeter after a rain and see where water sits, then check that downspouts carry it away from the house. Standing water against a Florida slab is the start of most of the problems inside.

Resolve

Replace every burned-out bulb

Match the color temperature across a room while you are at it. A house with one dead bulb per room photographs dim and shows dimmer.

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Guides for this sale

Prepare the house

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.

Read the guide

Prepare the house

What do home inspectors find in Central Florida?

A Florida home inspection is a visual look at eight defined areas of the house, and most of what comes back is ordinary maintenance. The findings that move a contract are narrower: roof age and condition, the wiring and the panel, the plumbing material, and the age of the cooling system, because those are what an insurer underwrites before it will bind a policy for the buyer.

Read the guide

Disclosure, taxes, and title

Selling a house with an HOA in Florida

Selling inside a Florida homeowners association adds three steps to an ordinary closing: the buyer gets a disclosure summary before signing, the association issues an estoppel certificate to the closing agent, and the association's records have to match what you told the buyer. Each step runs on the association's clock rather than yours, so start them before the sign goes in the yard.

Read the guide

Sources

Last updated October 24, 2026

Sell your house in Longwood

Is my Longwood house on sewer or septic?

Does the Wekiva springs protection area change a septic sale?

What can I change on a house in the Longwood Historic District?

What does a 1970s Longwood house need on paper?

Neighborhoods in Longwood

Longwood Historic District

Sweetwater Oaks

East Longwood

Sandalwood

Coventry and The Landings

Housing stock to check

Seminole County records and permits

Selling in Longwood? Start with one call.

Before you list in Longwood

Gather

Inspect

Resolve

Nearby cities

Talk to a listing agent

Guides for this sale

What happens if work on your house was never permitted?

What do home inspectors find in Central Florida?

Selling a house with an HOA in Florida

Sources