Open Permits When Buying a Home in Miami-Dade

What happens if a Miami-Dade home has an open permit?

An open permit means work was permitted but never passed final inspection, so it stays on the property record indefinitely. In Miami-Dade it surfaces during the municipal lien search, and most lenders will not fund until it is closed, insured over by the title underwriter, or covered by an escrow holdback. Title insurance does not cover permit issues. As of 2026, Miami-Dade carries roughly 7,883 expired building permits and 31,110 open code violations across 19,071 properties, so this is a routine check, not an edge case.

By Giovanni Altamiranda | July 30, 2026

You found the house. It shows beautifully. The kitchen was redone, the back patio was enclosed to add a family room, the electrical panel looks new. Everything about it says recently updated.

Then, two weeks before closing, the title company's municipal lien search comes back with an open electrical permit from 2019 and no record of the enclosure at all. Your lender pauses. Your closing date becomes a question mark.

This is one of the most common ways a clean Miami-Dade deal goes sideways, and it is almost entirely preventable.

As of 2026, Miami-Dade County has roughly 31,110 open code violations spread across 19,071 properties, plus 7,883 expired building permits where work was started and never received a final inspection. That works out to about one in fifteen residential properties carrying some kind of open issue. Industry estimates put open, expired, or inactive permit problems in roughly one out of every five transactions.

If you're buying in Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Coconut Grove, South Miami, Palmetto Bay, or Key Biscayne, where a large share of the inventory is older housing stock that has been renovated at least once, your odds aren't better than average. They're probably worse.

Here's what I tell every buyer who asks me about this.

Open permit or unpermitted work? They're different problems

An open or expired permit means someone pulled a permit, did the work, and never called for the final inspection. Under Florida Building Code Section 105.4.1, a permit becomes invalid if work is suspended or abandoned for six months. In Miami-Dade, permits generally expire if work doesn't start within 180 days of issuance or stops for more than 180 days. The permit doesn't disappear. It sits on the property record with an unresolved status until someone closes it out.

Unpermitted work means no permit was ever pulled. The garage conversion, the enclosed terrace, the added bathroom, the reroofed section. There's no paper trail at all, which is worse in some ways, because the county has no record that the work meets code and you have no record of who did it.

Both show up in the municipal lien search. Both can stop a financed closing.

How to check a property's permit history before you write an offer

You don't need to wait for the title company. Most of this is public and free.

1. Pull the permit history by folio or address. Miami-Dade's permit portal lets you search by address or folio number and see every permit ever pulled on the property, its current status, and the inspection history. Look for anything marked open, expired, abandoned, or missing a final inspection.
2. Compare the permit record to what you're actually looking at. This is the step most buyers skip. Walk the house with the permit list in hand. If there's a 600 square foot addition on the property and no permit for an addition, you've found the problem before it found you.
3. Check the Property Appraiser's building record. Miami-Dade's Property Appraiser maintains square footage, bedroom, and bathroom counts. If the listing says four bedrooms and 3,400 square feet, and the county record says three bedrooms and 2,800 square feet, that difference is almost always unpermitted.
4. Confirm which jurisdiction you're in. Coral Gables, South Miami, Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, and Key Biscayne each run their own building department. Unincorporated Miami-Dade is handled by the county's Department of Regulatory and Economic Resources. The permit may live in the city's system, not the county's.
5. Order the municipal lien search early. In Miami-Dade, the buyer customarily pays for it, typically a flat fee around $110 plus the individual city's search cost, and roughly $200 for properties inside the City of Miami. Customary isn't mandatory, and it's negotiable, like most of what you'll actually pay at closing. The more useful move is ordering it in the first days of your inspection period rather than two weeks before closing.

One thing worth knowing: permits are not covered by title insurance. Your owner's policy will not protect you from an open permit or unpermitted work discovered after closing. That isn't what title insurance does. The diligence here is genuinely on you.

A standard home inspection is also not a permit search. A good Miami inspector will flag amateur electrical, a suspicious enclosure, or a roof that doesn't match its stated age, but an inspector is evaluating visible condition, not county records. You need both.

And a handful of Miami-Dade municipalities run re-occupancy inspection programs that catch this automatically at sale, including North Miami, Miami Springs, Biscayne Park, El Portal, Miami Gardens, and Hialeah. The neighborhoods most of my clients buy in are not on that list. There's no automatic safety net in Coral Gables or Pinecrest. Nobody checks unless you check.

If you're looking at a condo rather than a single-family home, the permit question stacks on top of the building-level items in my condo buyer's checklist. Unit-level renovations and association-level structural compliance are two separate diligence tracks.

What it costs to fix, and who ends up paying

The range is wide, and it depends almost entirely on whether walls have to come open.

• An expired electrical permit on a panel upgrade: roughly $2,000 to resolve
• A full kitchen remodel or an addition permitted after the fact: roughly $15,000 to $40,000, once you account for opening walls for inspection, bringing wiring and plumbing to current code, and paying penalty fees
• After-the-fact permits in Miami-Dade carry doubled permit fees, and most jurisdictions add a penalty or investigative fee on top of that

Timeline matters as much as cost. Straightforward residential after-the-fact cases in Miami-Dade and Broward commonly resolve in roughly 8 to 16 weeks. That's longer than most contracts.

Outcomes generally break three ways. Roughly 70 percent of unpermitted work is fully legalizable with as-built drawings, a retroactive permit, and a passing inspection. About 20 percent is legalizable with modification, meaning something has to change to meet code first. About 10 percent can't meet code and has to come out.

Three costs people consistently underestimate:

The appraisal. An appraiser will not count unpermitted square footage. A home marketed at 3,400 square feet that's 2,800 permitted square feet appraises as a 2,800 square foot home. If you're financing, that gap becomes your down payment problem, not the seller's. The same logic applies to bedroom count. An unpermitted fourth bedroom gets compared against three-bedroom comps.

Insurance. Florida carriers check permit records during four-point inspections and at renewal. Unpermitted roof or electrical work can be grounds for a denied claim later, on the theory that the loss came from faulty workmanship rather than a covered peril. This is the cost that shows up years after closing, which is exactly why it gets ignored at closing. It's also a real line item on top of what you're already budgeting for coverage.

Code liens. Under Florida Statute 162.09, code enforcement liens run with the land. They stay attached to the property through the transfer. Fines commonly run $250 to $500 per day, per violation, until resolved. If a lien has been recorded, the title company will require payoff at closing. If a violation is open but not yet liened, you inherit the clock.

Properties carrying open code violations generally transact 5 to 15 percent below comparable clean properties, depending on severity. That discount is real, and sometimes taking it is the right call. But you want to be the one pricing it, not the one discovering it.

How to handle it inside a FAR/BAR contract

Timing is the whole game.

The FAR/BAR AS IS contract gives you an inspection period, 15 days by default, though it's negotiable and frequently written at 10 or 12. Within that window you can cancel for any reason and get your deposit back. Once it expires, that right is gone. The January 2026 form updates refined the inspection period language and expanded disclosure requirements, but the core structure is unchanged. Every deadline runs to 5:00 PM local time on the applicable day, and missing it by an hour is the same as missing it by a week.

So the permit search belongs in the first few days of your inspection period, not the last few. Run it alongside the home inspection, not after it.

If something turns up, you have four realistic paths:

1. Seller closes the permit before closing. Cleanest outcome, and the one to ask for first. It also requires the most runway, which is why finding it early matters so much.
2. Escrow holdback. The title company holds back a portion of the seller's proceeds after closing and releases them only on proof the permit is closed. If the seller doesn't perform, you use the funds to do it yourself. Get the release conditions in writing and be specific about them.
3. Price credit. You take the problem, the seller funds the fix. Reasonable when the scope is known and the work is clearly legalizable.
4. Cancel. When the scope is unknown, the seller won't cooperate, or the work looks like it falls in the 10 percent that has to be removed.

On the seller's side, Florida's disclosure standard from Johnson v. Davis requires sellers to disclose known facts that materially affect value and aren't readily observable. Unpermitted work sits squarely inside that. An AS IS contract does not erase the duty to disclose. That said, a seller who genuinely didn't know a previous contractor left a permit open is common, and treating it as a fraud question instead of a logistics question tends to blow up deals that could have closed.

If you're paying cash, and a meaningful share of buyers in the $1M and above single-family market here are, you have more flexibility. No lender is forcing the issue. That flexibility cuts both ways, though. Nobody is forcing the issue on your behalf either. Cash buyers are the ones most likely to inherit a problem quietly, because the one party whose job it is to be paranoid about this isn't in the room.

Market conditions factor in too. As of June 2026, Miami-Dade single-family months of supply sat at roughly 4.9 months, which is still tight. As of late April 2026, homes in Coral Gables were going pending in about 68 days, and Pinecrest in about 91 days. In a market where well-priced single-family homes still move, you don't always have unlimited time to negotiate a permit issue, which changes how you approach the offer itself. It's another argument for running the search on day two instead of day twelve.

Your specific situation depends on the property, the jurisdiction, the scope of the work, and how you're financing it. This is exactly the kind of question I walk clients through before we write an offer, not after.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I get a mortgage on a Miami-Dade home with an open permit?

Usually not without resolving it first. Most lenders won't fund while an open permit is flagged unless it's closed before closing, the title underwriter agrees to insure over it (uncommon and at underwriter discretion), or funds are escrowed for completion. Cash purchases aren't subject to that constraint, which is both the advantage and the risk.

Does title insurance cover open permits or unpermitted work?

No. Permit and code compliance issues fall outside what an owner's title policy covers in Florida. If an open permit is found, the title company may also list it as an exception on the policy, which most lenders won't accept. Verifying permit history is the buyer's responsibility.

How do I look up permits on a Miami-Dade property myself?

Search by address or folio number through Miami-Dade County's permit portal to see permit history, inspection history, and current status. If the property sits inside Coral Gables, South Miami, Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay, or Key Biscayne, check that city's building department as well, since the permit may live in the municipal system rather than the county's.

How long does an after-the-fact permit take in Miami-Dade?

Straightforward residential cases commonly run about 8 to 16 weeks from application to final inspection, assuming as-built drawings and any required engineering are in order. Complex work, or work that has to be partially opened up for inspection, takes longer. Plan for it to outlast your contract timeline.

Am I responsible for a previous owner's code violation after I buy?

In most cases, yes. Code enforcement liens run with the land under Florida Statute 162.09 and transfer with the property. Recorded liens are typically paid off at closing, but an open violation that hasn't been liened yet becomes the new owner's problem, along with any daily fines that keep accruing.

An open permit isn't a reason to walk away from a house you want. It's a reason to find out early, price it accurately, and decide on purpose instead of under pressure. The buyers who handle this well are the ones who ran the search in week one, before they were emotionally committed and before the closing calendar started applying pressure.

If you're thinking through this for your own situation, I'm happy to walk you through it. No pitch, just a straight conversation. Schedule a free consultation at moveupmiami.com.

About Giovanni Altamiranda

Giovanni Altamiranda is a Miami-native real estate advisor at LUXE Properties, a team that closes over $1 billion in annual sales volume, and a licensed loan officer with Columbus Capital. With 11 years of experience and designations including SRS, ABR, and RENE, Gio specializes in Coral Gables, Coconut Grove, Pinecrest, South Miami, Palmetto Bay, Key Biscayne, and the surrounding Miami-Dade neighborhoods. He works exclusively with move-up buyers and relocating families in the $1M–$5M range, and is recognized as a top agent on Zillow. Rather than pushing a transaction, Gio's approach is advisory, helping buyers and families work through the real tradeoffs so they can make the decision that's right for them, not just right now. Born and raised in Miami, he brings firsthand knowledge of the neighborhoods, commutes, and market dynamics that out-of-town agents can't replicate. His dual license as both advisor and loan officer means clients get a cleaner, faster transaction with no surprises at the closing table.

Giovanni Altamiranda, NMLS# LO52044, Licensed Mortgage Loan Officer, Columbus Capital. This is not a commitment to lend. Loans are subject to borrower and property qualifications. Rates and program guidelines subject to change without notice.

This content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. Consult a licensed professional for guidance specific to your situation.