Hiring a Florida Contractor for a Home Addition: What the Law Requires

Check the license on the state's public search, make sure the license class covers what you are adding, and read the contract for the notices Florida requires on residential work over $2,500: the Homeowners' Construction Recovery Fund notice and the construction lien warning. If you pay more than 10 percent up front, the contractor must apply for permits within 30 days and start within 90 days after they issue.

Check the contractor's license before the first site visit

A minute on the state's license search tells you more than any brochure. The Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation publishes a public lookup at myfloridalicense.com that shows whether a contractor's license exists and what its status is. Florida law also requires a contractor's registration or certification number to appear on every bid, proposal, contract and advertisement, in any medium. A bid with no license number on it has already told you something.

Residential or building contractor: matching the license to the addition

Not every license reaches every addition. Under F.S. 489.105, a residential contractor may work on one-, two- or three-family homes of no more than two habitable stories above no more than one uninhabitable story, plus accessory structures, while a building contractor may build residential buildings up to three stories. A single-story suite or a backyard cottage sits within a residential license. If the plan puts a new floor on a house that already has two, check that the license class covers the result before you go further.

The two written notices an addition contract must include

Two notices are required by statute on residential contracts over $2,500, and a contract without them is worth questioning. F.S. 489.1425 requires written notice of the Florida Homeowners' Construction Recovery Fund, which for contracts signed on or after July 1, 2024 caps a Division I claim at $100,000. F.S. 713.015 requires a boldfaced construction lien warning on any direct contract over $2,500 to improve a one-to-four family home: subcontractors and suppliers who go unpaid may place a lien on the property even when you have paid the contractor in full. Ask how the trades and suppliers on your job will be paid, and what you will receive showing they were.

What a large deposit obliges the contractor to do

A deposit comes with a clock. Under F.S. 489.126, a contractor who takes more than 10 percent of the contract price as an initial payment on residential work must apply for the necessary permits within 30 days of payment and start work within 90 days after the permits issue, unless there is just cause or you agreed in writing to longer periods. Read any clause that extends those periods before you sign it, because signing it is the written agreement the statute refers to.

The notice of commencement comes before the first inspection

On an addition where the direct contract is greater than $5,000, F.S. 713.135 requires the permitting office to have a copy of the recorded notice of commencement before the first inspection. It is routine, and it is part of how Florida's lien law works. Expect it early in the schedule, and ask the contractor when it will be recorded, so the first inspection is not held up waiting for it.

Acting as your own builder, and where that route ends

You do not have to hire a contractor at all. The owner-builder exemption in F.S. 489.103(7) lets you act as your own contractor on a one- or two-family home for your own use, provided you supervise the work directly and on site. You may not hire an unlicensed person to run the job for you, the permitting office will have you sign a disclosure statement, and if you sell or lease the house within a year of completion the law presumes it was built for sale or lease, outside the exemption. St. Petersburg's accessory dwelling guidance says a residential or general contractor is generally required unless the unit is occupied by an owner who qualifies as an owner-builder.

Where Senior Home Additions fits in the hiring process

We are not a contractor, and we do not bid on, price or sign for the work. We find out who the space is for, what it has to hold and which of the kitchen, flood and tax rules apply at your address, then connect you with a vetted local contractor licensed by the State of Florida and insured for the work. That contractor's license number, contract and notices are their own, and every check in this guide still applies to them. When you are ready, send a request, and bring this list to the first meeting.