Under the Florida construction defect statute of limitations, you have four years to file suit, measured either from substantial completion or from the date a hidden defect was discovered or should have been discovered. A separate statute of repose imposes an absolute seven-year cutoff, and no claim survives past it regardless of when the problem appeared. Both deadlines sit in Florida Statutes Section 95.11(3)(b), and Senate Bill 360 in 2023 shortened the outer limit from ten years to seven and changed when the clock starts.
The Four-Year Deadline for Filing Suit
Florida gives property owners four years to sue over defective design, planning, or construction of a building or other improvement to real property. For defects visible from the start — cracked stucco, misaligned windows, broken tiles — those four years run from the date the local building authority issued the earliest completion-related document for the property.
Hidden problems are treated differently. When a defect is buried behind walls, under flooring, or inside the foundation, the four-year window starts from the date you discovered it or should have discovered it through reasonable diligence. This discovery rule protects owners against losing their rights over something that was genuinely invisible during a normal walkthrough.
Reasonable diligence is a standard courts take seriously. If a small water stain appeared on a ceiling three years before a major leak caused structural damage, a judge could decide the clock started when that first stain showed up. Ignoring early warning signs is one of the fastest ways to blow a valid claim. The moment you notice anything unusual — moisture, cracking, settling — document it and get a professional inspection.
The Seven-Year Absolute Cutoff
The statute of repose works differently from the four-year limitations period and catches many owners off guard. It is a hard, absolute deadline: no construction defect lawsuit may be filed more than seven years after the triggering event, no matter when the defect was discovered. A roof that starts leaking in year six leaves only one year to act. A foundation crack that first appears in year eight is out of luck.
This outer boundary used to be ten years. Senate Bill 360, signed into law on April 13, 2023, cut it to seven and applied retroactively to all actions filed on or after that date, regardless of when the underlying defect occurred. The bill included a one-time grace period: claims that would have been timely under the old ten-year window had to be filed by July 1, 2024, or they were permanently barred.
An important nuance sits inside the repose rule. Serving a pre-suit notice under Chapter 558 tolls the four-year limitations period but does not toll the seven-year repose period, and the statute says so explicitly. The seven-year wall keeps moving toward you even while you go through the mandatory notice process. Owners approaching that seven-year mark need to be careful about timing.
What Starts the Clock
Both the four-year and seven-year periods begin running from whichever of these dates comes first:
- Issuance of a temporary certificate of occupancy, which is issued when a building is safe for limited use but not fully complete.
- Issuance of the certificate of occupancy, meaning the standard approval that the building meets code requirements for occupancy.
- Issuance of a certificate of completion, which shows that work under a permit is finished (this certificate alone does not authorize occupancy).
- Abandonment of construction, if the project was never finished.
The word “earliest” is doing heavy lifting in the statute, and it represents a major change from prior law. Before SB 360, the clock started from whichever milestone came last, which typically gave owners more time. Now, if a temporary certificate of occupancy is issued in March but the final certificate does not come until September, the March date controls. Owners who assumed they had time based on the final certificate may have already burned months off their filing window without realizing it.
These dates are public records maintained by local building departments. If you own property and are concerned about a potential defect, pulling the permit history and finding the earliest certificate issued is the first step in figuring out how much time you have left.
Special Rules for Condos, Multi-Building Projects, and Model Homes
Condominium complexes, apartment buildings, and other multi-structure developments follow a project-specific rule that matters enormously for associations and individual unit owners. Under current law, each building within a multi-building project is treated as its own separate improvement for purposes of calculating the limitations period. The clock starts independently for each building based on when that particular building received its earliest certificate, not when the overall project wrapped up.
In a phased development where Building A receives its temporary certificate of occupancy two years before Building C, Building A’s seven-year repose period expires two years sooner. A condominium association filing a claim for the entire complex needs to track certificates for every building individually, or some claims will be barred while others survive.
Model homes get a carve-out. When a newly constructed single-family home is used as a model, the clock does not start from the certificate of occupancy. It begins when a deed is first recorded transferring title to a buyer. This prevents the odd result of a builder burning through years of an owner’s filing window by using the home as a sales tool before anyone moves in.
One more rule to know: warranty repairs and defect corrections performed after the original completion do not restart or extend the limitations period. A contractor who comes back in year three to patch a leak has not given you a fresh four-year window on that repair. The original clock keeps running from the original triggering date.
The Chapter 558 Notice and How It Affects Your Deadlines
Florida does not let you walk straight into court with a construction defect claim. Chapter 558 of the Florida Statutes requires every claimant to serve a written notice of claim on the responsible contractor, subcontractor, supplier, or design professional before filing suit. For individual owners, the notice must be served at least 60 days before filing. For associations representing more than 20 parcels, which covers most condominium and homeowner associations, the minimum is 120 days.
The notice itself has specific content requirements. It must reference Chapter 558 explicitly, describe each alleged defect in enough detail for the recipient to understand what is being claimed, identify the location of each defect well enough that the contractor can find it without unreasonable effort, and describe the resulting damage or loss if known. The location description must be based on at least a visual inspection, though destructive testing is not required at this stage. A professional inspection or engineering assessment strengthens the notice considerably. Vague complaints about “water damage somewhere on the second floor” invite disputes about whether the notice was sufficient.
Serving the notice pauses the four-year limitations period but not the seven-year repose period. The tolling lasts until the later of two dates: 90 days after you served the notice (120 days for associations with more than 20 parcels), or 30 days after the end of any repair or payment period stated in an offer you accepted. The parties can also agree in writing to extend the tolling period.
This split treatment matters most for owners who discover defects late. Find a hidden problem in year six, serve a Chapter 558 notice, and the four-year clock pauses while the seven-year clock keeps running. Weeks spent in the pre-suit process can eat the remaining repose time and leave you unable to file at all. When you are close to the seven-year mark, every week counts.
How To Protect Your Claim
The compressed timelines under current Florida law leave little room for delay. A few steps make the difference between preserving a claim and losing it:
- Pull your permit records early. Contact the local building department and identify the earliest certificate issued for your property. That date is when all clocks started.
- Inspect before year five. A thorough inspection by a licensed engineer or contractor before the five-year mark gives you time to serve the Chapter 558 notice, go through the response process, and still file suit within the seven-year repose period if negotiations fail.
- Document everything. Photographs, maintenance records, and written communications with the builder create a timeline that supports both the existence of the defect and the reasonableness of your discovery date.
- Do not ignore small problems. A hairline crack or minor moisture stain can become the date a court uses to start your four-year clock. Getting a professional opinion early is far cheaper than having a judge rule you should have acted sooner.
- Track the repose deadline separately. Because the Chapter 558 notice tolls only the limitations period and not the repose period, you need to know exactly how much time remains on the seven-year clock before you start the pre-suit process.
Damages in Florida construction defect cases are measured as of the date of the breach, meaning repair costs are calculated based on what the fix would have cost when the defect occurred, not what it costs years later at trial. Waiting risks missing a deadline and complicates proving what repairs should have cost at the relevant time.