General Contractor in Florida

What a general contractor is actually responsible for in Florida

The phrase gets used loosely. A handyman with a truck will call himself a contractor, and so will the person who pulls the permit on a forty-unit building. In Florida the distinction is not marketing, it is statutory. A licensed general contractor is the party who signs the permit application, and signing it means accepting responsibility for the work of every trade that touches the job afterward.

That has a practical consequence most homeowners only discover when something goes wrong. If an unlicensed person does structural work on your house and the inspection fails, the problem is yours. If a licensed contractor pulls the permit and the inspection fails, the problem is the contractor's, and correcting it is part of what you already paid for. The permit is not paperwork. It is the document that decides who is liable.

The responsibility also runs forward in time. A general contractor coordinates the sequence of trades so that the electrician is not roughing in a wall the framer has not finished, and so that the inspector is not called out to look at work that is not ready. On a small remodel that sequencing is a convenience. On a ground-up build it is the difference between a schedule and a series of expensive false starts.

What falls outside the role

A general contractor is not an architect and is not an engineer. On projects that change the structure of a building, a licensed design professional prepares the drawings and the contractor builds to them. A contractor who tells you drawings are unnecessary for a load-bearing change is telling you something that plan review is going to disagree with.

How Florida licenses contractors, and how to check yours

Contractor licensing in Florida sits under Chapter 489 of the Florida Statutes and is administered by the Construction Industry Licensing Board, which operates within the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. There are several classes, and the differences between them are about scope, not about quality.

• Certified General Contractor, abbreviated CGC. The broadest of the three. A CGC may construct, repair, remodel or improve any structure of any height or complexity that the building code permits.
• Certified Building Contractor, abbreviated CBC. Limited to commercial and residential buildings up to three stories.
• Certified Residential Contractor, abbreviated CRC. Limited to one, two and three-family dwellings and their accessory structures, and not permitted to perform commercial construction.

The important thing for a homeowner is that all three of those are real licenses and all three are appropriate for different work. A residential contractor is not a lesser contractor. The mistake is hiring outside the class, which is what happens when a license that covers houses is used on a commercial build-out, or when someone claims a scope their certification does not cover.

Checking a license takes two minutes

The state maintains a public license lookup. You enter the license number or the business name and you get the class, the status, the expiration date and any disciplinary history. There is no reason to skip this step and no polite way to be told no when you ask for the number. A contractor who is slow to give you a license number is answering the question.

Two things worth checking beyond the status. First, that the license is active rather than expired or on inactive status. Second, that the person named on the license, the qualifier, is actually connected to the company you are hiring. A license borrowed from someone who is not involved in the work is a known problem in this industry, and it leaves you with the paperwork of protection and none of the substance.

What happens when the work is done unlicensed

People usually frame this as a risk of poor workmanship, and that is the smallest part of it. An unlicensed person cannot pull a permit, so unpermitted work goes in. Unpermitted structural work surfaces later, and it surfaces at the worst possible time: when you sell and the buyer’s inspector finds an addition that does not appear in the county records, or when you file a claim and the carrier asks for the permit history.

The correction is worse than the original job. Bringing unpermitted work into compliance after the fact can mean opening finished walls so an inspector can see what is behind them, and in some cases it means removing the work entirely. The homeowner pays for that twice, and the person who did it is usually not reachable by then.

The code edition your project will actually be built to

Florida has a statewide building code rather than a patchwork of local ones, which sounds like it should make things simple. It mostly does, with one wrinkle that catches people. The code is updated on a cycle, and the edition your project answers to is the one in effect when your permit application is accepted, not the one in effect when you started planning.

On a small remodel that timing rarely matters. On a project that spends a year in design, it can. A change between editions can alter what is required for opening protection, for roof attachment, or for energy compliance, and a set of drawings prepared under the previous edition may need revision before it clears plan review. This is not a reason to rush a permit application. It is a reason to ask your contractor which edition your drawings were prepared under, and to hear a specific answer.

Local jurisdictions do add their own layer on top of the state code, and that layer is where the variation lives. Setbacks, driveway width, tree protection, impervious surface limits, height restrictions in specific overlays: those are municipal or county rules, and they differ from one side of a county line to the other. The state code tells you how to build. The local code tells you what you are allowed to build and where.

Wind requirements change across Florida, and they change by address

Design wind speed in Florida is not a single number. It varies across the state, and within a region it can vary between one address and another depending on exposure and on the wind-borne debris boundaries. This is the single most common surprise for homeowners moving here from another state, and it drives real money.

What it affects, in rough terms: the structural connections between roof and wall, the fastening schedule for sheathing and roofing, the rating required for windows and doors, and whether openings need impact-rated glazing or approved shutters. A window that is perfectly ordinary in one part of the country is not code-compliant here, and the difference in cost between a standard window and an impact-rated one is not small.

The practical advice is narrow and useful. Before you fall in love with a product, ask whether it carries a Florida Product Approval or a Miami-Dade Notice of Acceptance appropriate to your address. Beautiful doors that cannot be permitted are a recurring and avoidable source of delay.

Elevation and flood, which is a separate question

Wind and flood are two different regulatory systems and they are often confused. A property can sit in a high design wind zone and outside any special flood hazard area, or the reverse. Flood requirements affect the elevation of the finished floor and the construction of anything below it, and they are tied to flood maps that get revised. If your project involves a new structure or a substantial improvement to an existing one, the flood zone is worth confirming early rather than late.

Storm damage, roofs, and the 25% rule people get wrong

For years Florida had a rule that if 25 percent or more of a roof was damaged or repaired within any twelve-month period, the entire roof had to be brought up to current code. Homeowners with a hole in one slope kept being told they needed a whole new roof, and insurers and contractors argued about it constantly.

That changed in May 2022, when Senate Bill 4-D was enacted. Under the current framework, a roof built, repaired or replaced in compliance with the 2007 Florida Building Code or any later edition can have only the damaged portion repaired, regardless of how much of the roof is affected. The statute turns on which edition of the code the roof was built to, not on a calendar date; the 2007 edition took effect on 1 March 2009, which is the practical way to tell. Roofs that do not meet that test still fall under the previous requirement, and crossing the 25 percent threshold still triggers full replacement.

Two things follow from that, and both are worth knowing before you file a claim. First, the age and permit history of your roof is now a financial fact, not a trivia question, and it is worth knowing the date before you need it. Second, an insurer cannot lean on the old rule to refuse payment for a localized repair on a roof that qualifies for the exemption.

None of this is a promise about your particular claim. Insurance policies differ, and the condition of an older roof can make a repair impractical for reasons that have nothing to do with the code. But the rule that most people repeat in conversation is the rule that stopped applying to newer roofs several years ago.

State money for wind hardening, and what it actually pays for

Florida runs a program called My Safe Florida Home that provides matching grants for hurricane mitigation on qualifying homes. The structure is a two-to-one match, with the state contributing two dollars for every dollar the homeowner puts in, up to ten thousand dollars for an approved mitigation project. The program reopened in August 2025 with three hundred and fifty-two million dollars for that cycle, and the legislature has since reappropriated more than four hundred million dollars for 2026 and 2027.

The work it funds is deliberately narrow, and it is narrow for a reason: these are the categories that move insurance premiums the most.

• Opening protection. Impact-rated windows and doors, hurricane shutters, and impact-rated garage doors.
• Roof improvements. Re-roofing, secondary water resistance, and hip-roof structural features.
• Roof-to-wall connections. Clips, single wraps and double wraps that tie the roof structure to the walls.

The reason those three categories matter beyond the grant is the wind mitigation discount. Once qualifying upgrades are installed and a new inspection form is filed with the carrier, the discount applies to the wind portion of the premium and can be substantial. Whether you qualify, and by how much, depends on the property, the inspection result, the insurer and the policy, so the honest answer is that it is worth having the inspection done and worth reading the result carefully.

Liens, and the paperwork that protects you at the end

Florida has a construction lien law, and it is the part of a project most homeowners never think about until it is a problem. The mechanism is straightforward once you see it. People who supply labor or materials to improve your property have a right to place a claim against the property if they are not paid. That right belongs to subcontractors and suppliers, not only to the contractor you hired.

The uncomfortable consequence is the one worth understanding. You can pay your general contractor in full, on time, and still face a claim from a supplier the contractor did not pay. You paid; the supplier did not get paid; and the property is what the law lets the supplier reach.

The two documents that matter

A Notice of Commencement is recorded before work begins on projects above a certain value, and it is posted at the job site. It tells anyone supplying the job who the owner is and where to send notice. Skipping it does not simplify anything; it removes a step that exists to keep everyone visible to each other.

A release of lien is what you collect on the way out. Partial releases as the work progresses and payments are made, and a final release at the end, from the contractor and from the subcontractors and suppliers who served the job. A contractor who treats that request as an insult is not a contractor who has done many of these.

The thresholds, the recording requirements and the notice periods are set by statute and they are the kind of detail worth confirming for your specific project rather than taking from a website. What does not change is the shape of the protection: know who is working on your property, and collect the paper that says they were paid.

How payment is usually structured

Payments on a construction project are normally tied to progress rather than to the calendar. A deposit to start, then draws as identifiable phases complete, then a final payment when the punch list is closed. The detail that protects you is that the last payment is meaningful in size and comes after the work is finished, not before. A payment schedule that is heavily front-loaded moves the risk onto you for no reason connected to how the work actually proceeds.

What we build across Florida

Sunshine State Builders is based in Clermont and works across Lake, Orange, Polk and Osceola counties. The work falls into a few recognizable categories.

• Custom homes on your lot. From footing through certificate of occupancy, with one schedule and one point of contact.
• Additions. Room additions, second stories and lanai enclosures, tied structurally into what is already standing.
• Whole-home remodeling. Including load-bearing changes and the permit work that necessarily comes with them.
• Kitchens and bathrooms. Where the coordination between cabinetry, electrical and plumbing is most of the job.
• Patios and outdoor living. Covered structures and screen enclosures, built to the wind requirements that apply at the address.
• Storm damage restoration. Structural repair after wind and water, documented the way an adjuster needs it.

What actually drives cost and schedule on a Florida project

Homeowners tend to assume that finishes drive the budget, and finishes are the most visible thing, so the assumption is understandable. In practice the budget is usually decided by four things, and three of them are invisible once the drywall is up.

Whether you are moving structure. Removing a load-bearing wall, changing a roofline or adding a second story pulls in engineering, different framing, and a plan review that takes longer. Two kitchens with identical finishes can differ enormously in cost depending on whether one of them opened a wall.

Whether you are moving water. Relocating a drain line is not the same as replacing a fixture. Under a slab it is significantly more involved than in a crawl space or a second floor, and Florida is largely slab-on-grade.

Electrical service capacity. Older houses frequently do not have the panel capacity for what people want to add. That is discovered during the project unless somebody checked at the walkthrough, which is one of the reasons a walkthrough matters.

Permitting and inspection scheduling. This is the variable that a contractor influences most and controls least. A complete, correctly prepared application clears review faster than an incomplete one, and inspections that are called when the work is genuinely ready do not get failed and rescheduled. What a contractor cannot do is set the jurisdiction's queue.

Hurricane season, and how it shapes a schedule

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June through November, and it affects Florida construction in a way that is worth planning around. Not because work stops, but because certain phases are more exposed than others. A structure that is dried in is in a very different position from one that is open to the sky, and the sensible approach is to sequence the vulnerable phases outside the highest-risk weeks where the calendar allows.

Choosing a general contractor in Florida

Most of the advice on this subject is generic. Here is the part that is specific to this state.

Ask for the license number and check the class. Not just whether they are licensed, but whether their class covers your scope.

Ask who pulls the permit. If the answer is that you will pull it as the homeowner, understand what that means: you are accepting the liability that would otherwise sit with the contractor. There are legitimate reasons a homeowner might pull a permit. Convenience for the contractor is not one of them.

Ask what is not included. A written scope that lists exclusions is more useful than one that lists inclusions, because the argument at the end of a project is always about something nobody wrote down.

Ask about insurance, and ask to be sent the certificate directly. General liability and workers compensation, current, from the carrier rather than forwarded as a photograph.

Ask how you will be told when something changes. Every project changes. The difference between a good experience and a bad one is almost never whether something went wrong, it is whether you heard about it from your contractor or discovered it yourself.

Sunshine State Builders holds a 4.8 rating across 33 Google reviews as of August 2026. The company is built on twenty-two years of field experience, five of those years holding the license, and works from Clermont across four Central Florida counties.