Who Pays If Your Florida House Is Damaged Before Closing?

Keep the House the Way It Was on the Effective Date

Signing doesn't hand the house to the buyer. Until closing, it's still yours to keep up. What you're protecting in that stretch is the sale you signed, closing on the date in the contract.

Keep the property in the condition it was in on the Effective Date. Paragraph 11 of the Florida Realtors/Florida Bar AS IS contract sets that standard, and the Effective Date is the day the last of you and the buyer signed or initialed and delivered the offer or the final counter-offer. Ordinary wear and tear is carved out. So is damage from fire or another casualty, which the contract's Standard M handles on its own terms. The form names the lawn and the pool. Shrubs too.

Fall short and it costs you at closing. Under paragraph 9(a), if you can't meet that maintenance requirement before closing, 125% of the estimated cost to meet it is held in escrow at closing. If the real cost runs higher, you pay the difference. Unused money comes back to you.

The buyer also gets a final look. Under paragraph 12(b), the buyer or the buyer's representative can walk through the day before closing, or on closing day before the closing time. The walk-through checks two things: the items included in the sale are still in place, and you've kept up the maintenance and met your other obligations. On this form, those items include storm shutters and storm protection items and hardware you own that were on the property at the initial offer, unless paragraph 1(e) or another term of the contract excludes them.

So keep the lawn cut and the pool in the shape it was in, even after you move out. And unless you excluded them, leave the shutters.

Repair Storm Damage Before Closing or Escrow It

One number decides who pays. It's 1.5% of the Purchase Price, set by Standard M of the Florida Realtors/Florida Bar contracts for fire or another casualty that damages the house after the Effective Date and before closing. Same wording in the standard and AS IS versions.

At or under that number, fixing the house is on you and the closing goes ahead. On a $400,000 contract, for example, 1.5% is $6,000.

That leaves you one call to make. Fix the damage before closing. Or let escrow cover it. If the work isn't done by closing, 125% of the estimated cost to finish it is held in escrow at closing, capped at 1.5% of the price. If the real cost runs past what's held, you pay it, up to that same 1.5%. Anything unused comes back to you.

Above 1.5%, the choice isn't yours. The buyer either takes the house as is together with the 1.5%, or gets the deposit back, which releases both of you from the contract.

NOAA's National Hurricane Center puts the Atlantic hurricane season at June 1 to November 30, with most activity from mid-August to mid-October. Expect the buyer to want another look after a hurricane passes. A Florida Realtors legal article from September 2024 says buyers often do, whether or not the inspection period is still running. Under Standard L, you provide utilities and access on reasonable notice for appraisals and inspections, including a walk-through, or a follow-up walk-through if necessary, before closing. Keep your homeowner's insurance in force until closing too, since the repair cost up to 1.5% of the price stays yours until then.

Wait Out a Hurricane Delay or End the Contract After 30 Days

A storm doesn't have to touch your house. It can still stop the closing. Standard G of the Florida Realtors/Florida Bar contracts lists hurricanes and floods first among Force Majeure events, meaning events the side that can't perform is unable to prevent or overcome with reasonable diligent effort. While one disrupts, delays or prevents performance, or the services, insurance or approvals a closing needs, neither side has to perform and neither owes the other damages.

Insurance gets named outright. Under paragraph 5(b) of the AS IS form, if Force Majeure leaves services essential for closing unavailable, including the issuance of hazard, wind, flood or homeowners' insurance, the Closing Date extends as Standard G provides.

The extension has two limits. Every affected deadline, the Closing Date included, moves a reasonable time, up to 7 days after the event stops preventing performance. If it keeps blocking performance more than 30 days past the Closing Date, either side can end the contract with written notice. The deposit goes back to the buyer. Both of you are released.

The 30-day mark is your call too. Before it, plan for slack: don't put your move-out or the closing on your next home on the same day as this one. After it, wait or end the contract in writing.

Where Cash Flow Deals Fits Before You Sign

Before you sign any contract, find what it says about damage before closing. Nothing with Cash Flow Deals is binding until a written contract is signed by both sides, and you can read it with an attorney first. Everyone on the title is welcome on the call.

With Cash Flow Deals, a Florida real estate investor, you get two offers in writing: the Fast Cash Offer, where we buy your house as-is and close, and the Premium Cash Offer, where a pre-approved FHA or conventional buyer we already have, ready to go, pays more and buys directly from you. You choose. On the Premium Cash Offer, your home may be listed through Silver Door Realty, a licensed Florida brokerage; Cash Flow Deals is not itself a brokerage.

The number is agreed before any work starts, and it changes only if you agree. The one exception: if something structural surfaces that was not visible or disclosed before we signed — foundation issues, hidden moisture, old wiring, cast-iron drain failure — we re-cost it and bring the number back to you. You decide. You can walk away. We disclose what we know at offer time so this almost never happens.

Here is Cash Flow Deals' process, in order:

1. Your address: enter it and confirm it, then answer the offer questions. We call back the same day during business hours.

2. Your choice: compare the Fast Cash Offer and the Premium Cash Offer. With Fast Cash, we buy your house as-is and close. There is no listing, just one walk-through by our team. With Premium, the pre-approved buyer buys directly from you at a higher number.

3. Your Premium sale: you sign with us at a number you agree to and give us permission to bring in a buyer in our place. That buyer signs a new contract directly with you. Their lender funds it, and title transfers once.

4. Inspection period: the Fast Cash Offer has an inspection period of 15 business days. The Premium Cash Offer has its own inspection period, during which your home may be listed through Silver Door Realty. A licensed agent brings each buyer. Showings are scheduled ahead and take 10 to 15 minutes.

5. Closing: the existing 45 days or less timeline is subject to the written terms of the offer you choose, on a date you help pick.

6. Costs and repairs: we cover repair costs, and we figure out a way, so nothing comes out of your pocket. With Premium, only what the buyer's lender requires gets fixed, with repair costs settled from the sale proceeds rather than paid by you up front. With Fast Cash, we buy as-is, with no repairs for you to make. On Premium, closing costs, commissions and repairs come from our share, and we are paid as a separate line item on the closing statement. The number is agreed before any work starts, and it changes only if you agree. The one exception: if something structural surfaces that was not visible or disclosed before we signed — foundation issues, hidden moisture, old wiring, cast-iron drain failure — we re-cost it and bring the number back to you. You decide. You can walk away. We disclose what we know at offer time so this almost never happens.

If the Premium buyer's loan falls through, that is our problem, not yours, and you can still take the Fast Cash Offer at its own number. You choose between the Fast Cash Offer and the Premium Cash Offer based on what works for you.