Florida Construction Forensics& Construction Management Law

Statutes of Limitation & Repose

Florida Statute section 95.11(3)(c) governs both the limitations period and the repose period for construction defect claims, and Senate Bill 360 (signed April 13, 2023) meaningfully rewrote both the timeline and how it's calculated:

• Four-year statute of limitations, unchanged by SB 360, but now running from a clearly defined trigger date instead of several competing possible dates.
• Statute of repose shortened from ten years to seven years, an outer boundary that applies regardless of when a defect is actually discovered.
• New, objective trigger date: both periods now run from the earliest of the issuance of a temporary certificate of occupancy, a certificate of occupancy, a certificate of completion, or the date of abandonment if construction isn't completed — removing "date of actual possession by the owner" as a trigger, which had previously required its own case-by-case factual dispute.
• Multi-building projects: each building in a multi-building project (townhomes, apartment complexes) is now treated as its own separate improvement for limitations purposes, with its own trigger date tied to its own certificate.

Before SB 360, courts regularly had to resolve exactly this kind of factual dispute: in Harrell v. Ryland Group, 277 So.3d 292 (Fla. 1st DCA 2019), the timing question turned on the date of the community's last certificate of occupancy rather than any individual homeowner's possession date. The 2023 amendment was written specifically to eliminate that category of dispute going forward by fixing the trigger to a document of public record.

Because the repose period is now two-fifths shorter than it was before 2023, confirming a project's exact certificate-of-occupancy date and doing the seven-year math correctly is one of the first things worth establishing on a Florida matter. Getting the trigger date wrong can mean the difference between a live claim and one that's already time-barred.

Condo & Co-op Milestone Inspections & SIRS

After the June 2021 collapse of Champlain Towers South in Surfside — 98 deaths, later linked to deferred structural maintenance and underfunded reserves — the Florida Legislature enacted Senate Bill 4-D (2022), creating a statewide structural safety regime with real deadlines and real liability exposure, refined since by SB 154 (2023) and HB 913 (effective July 1, 2025):

• Milestone inspections (§553.899): condominium and cooperative buildings of three or more habitable stories (HB 913 clarified that parking, storage and mechanical floors don't count toward that threshold) must undergo a two-phase structural inspection by a licensed engineer or architect at 30 years of age from the certificate of occupancy date — 25 years if within three miles of a coastline — and every 10 years afterward.
• Structural Integrity Reserve Study, SIRS (§718.112(2)(g)): the same qualifying buildings must fund reserves on a 10-year study cycle covering nine specific structural components (roof, load-bearing walls, floor, foundation, fire protection, plumbing, electrical, waterproofing, and windows/exterior doors), with associations barred from waiving or underfunding reserves on those specific items.
• Cooperative buildings: governed by parallel provisions under Chapter 719, not just condominiums under Chapter 718.

For a forensic engagement, this framework creates a document trail that didn't exist before 2022: milestone inspection reports and SIRS studies are now routinely available records, and a building's compliance history with both requirements is often directly relevant to a structural defect or premises liability matter, not just a separate compliance question.

PCC's forensic review of Florida condominium and cooperative matters includes checking the building's actual milestone inspection and SIRS compliance history against the statutory schedule, since a gap in that record is often itself a material fact.

Contractor Licensing

Florida regulates contractors statewide through the Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) and its Construction Industry Licensing Board (CILB), under Chapter 489 of the Florida Statutes.

• Certified license: issued by the state, valid in every Florida county without additional local competency requirements. Certified General Contractor (CGC), Certified Building Contractor (CBC, limited to buildings up to three stories) and Certified Residential Contractor are the primary Division I classifications.
• Registered license: issued by a local jurisdiction and registered with DBPR, but valid only within that jurisdiction — a narrower scope than a Certified license.
• Recent trend toward statewide preemption: House Bill 735 (2021) began preempting local licensing for many scopes already covered by state certification, with subsequent legislation (HB 1383 in 2023, SB 1142 in 2024) continuing that transition and directing CILB to establish new state specialty certification categories.

Because a certified license carries statewide authority while a registered license doesn't, confirming which type of license a contractor actually held — and whether that scope covered the work performed — is a standard early step in PCC's Florida forensic intake, alongside a straightforward CILB license-status check.

Site Safety & OSHA Jurisdiction

Florida has no OSHA-approved State Plan, so construction site safety on Florida private-sector job sites falls under federal OSHA jurisdiction directly, enforced under 29 CFR Part 1926 (Construction Industry Standards). A forensic investigation touching an active Florida job site typically needs to account for federal OSHA requirements alongside local building codes, the Florida Building Code, and the standard of care in effect at the time of construction.