What Out-of-State Buyers Should Know About Florida Closings

I spent years as a commercial real estate paralegal and then as a residential closing coordinator before I ever held a license. That is the part of my background out-of-state buyers end up leaning on most, because Florida handles a handful of things differently from the states they are moving away from, and the differences tend to surface at the worst possible moment if nobody flagged them early.

Florida is a title company state

In much of the Northeast an attorney runs the closing. In Florida a title company typically does. Under the standard residential contract, which party pays for the owner's title policy is negotiable, and the customary answer varies by county. In Sarasota and Manatee counties this is one of the line items I look at closely on every contract, because it is real money and it is frequently just accepted as printed.

You can still hire your own attorney to review documents, and for a complex purchase I often suggest it. But do not assume one is automatically involved the way it may have been where you are coming from.

Documentary stamp taxes and intangible tax

Florida charges documentary stamp tax on the deed and, if you are financing, on the promissory note, plus an intangible tax on the mortgage itself. None of these are enormous individually. Together they surprise buyers who did not budget for them, and they appear on the closing statement rather than anywhere in the purchase contract. I put them in the estimate I give clients before we write an offer, so the number at the table matches the number they were expecting.

Insurance has to be bound before you fund

• Start the homeowners insurance quote during the inspection period, not the week of closing. This is the single most common source of delay I see.
• A four-point inspection and a wind mitigation report are commonly required on older homes, and the wind mit can meaningfully reduce the premium.
• If the property sits in a mapped flood zone, the lender will require flood coverage in place at closing, and an elevation certificate may be needed to price it.
• Roof age can determine whether a carrier will write the policy at all, which in turn determines whether your loan can close.

The pattern I watch for: a buyer waits until ten days out to shop insurance, discovers the roof is nineteen years old, and now has to either negotiate a roof credit or find a surplus lines carrier at triple the premium. Both are solvable at day five of the inspection period. Neither is comfortable at day three before closing.

FIRPTA, if the seller is a foreign person

When the seller is a foreign person under FIRPTA, the buyer can be responsible for withholding a portion of the sale price and remitting it to the IRS. The closing agent handles the mechanics routinely, but it has to be identified early rather than three days out, and it is worth asking about explicitly on any transaction where the seller is out of the country. Your closing agent and your tax advisor should both be aware of it well before the final week.

Property taxes will not match what the seller pays

This one catches nearly every out-of-state buyer. Florida's Save Our Homes cap limits annual assessment increases for homesteaded owners, so a seller who has owned for fifteen years may be paying tax on a value far below what you will pay after the property is reassessed following your purchase. When I run a carrying cost estimate I use the reassessed number, not the current bill. The difference can be several hundred dollars a month on an established home.

You do not have to be here

Mail-away closings and remote online notarization are routine now. I have closed plenty of purchases for clients who were in another time zone the entire time, including a few who never saw the house in person before the final walkthrough. What matters is that somebody local is watching the file every day: chasing the lender, confirming the insurance is bound, checking the title commitment for anything unexpected, and walking the property before you wire funds. That is the role I take on, and it is most of the value I add on a remote purchase.