Florida code violation resolution
Susy Q handles the entire case — the licensed contractors, the permits, the inspections, and the paperwork that gets your city or county to sign off. Commercial or residential, any county in Florida.
Appeal window per Chapter 162, Florida Statutes. Deadlines vary — check the dates printed on your notice.
What happens if you wait
Under Florida law, an unresolved violation moves through four stages. Each one costs more than the last. Most people we help are somewhere in stage two and did not know stage four existed.
An inspector posts or mails a notice describing the problem and a date to fix it by. This is the cheapest moment to act, and the one most people ignore.
If the deadline passes, the case goes before a code enforcement board or a special magistrate. They decide whether a violation exists and set a final deadline.
Miss that deadline and fines run every single day until the problem is fixed — commonly $100 to $500 a day, and up to $5,000 a day if you have been cited for the same thing before.
Unpaid fines get recorded against the property. Now you cannot cleanly sell it or refinance it, and the balance keeps climbing while you argue about it.
Process and penalty ranges per Chapter 162, Florida Statutes. Every city and county runs it slightly differently. Susy Q is not a law firm and does not give legal advice.
What we fix
Commercial or residential, one item or a list of thirty. If your notice mentions something not on this list, it is still worth sending over — nine categories cover most of it, not all of it.
Additions, enclosed patios, sheds, fences, driveways, windows, water heaters, AC swaps. We file for an after-the-fact permit — a permit for work already built — and get it inspected and approved.
Work that finished years ago but was never signed off. It sits open in the county's system and shows up the moment a buyer's title search runs. We close it out.
Roofs, balconies, stairs, seawalls, load-bearing walls. We bring in a licensed contractor and, where the county requires one, a structural engineer to sign the repair.
Old or unsafe panels, exposed or spliced wiring, meter and service issues, missing GFCI protection. Corrected by a licensed electrician and permitted properly.
Leaks, failing sewer laterals, backflow devices, water heaters installed without a permit, fixtures that were never inspected. Corrected by a licensed plumber.
Overgrown lots, debris, inoperable vehicles, peeling paint, damaged fencing, broken screens. Usually the quickest category to close — often within days.
An unpermitted second unit, a business run from a home, parking or storage that the zoning does not allow, signage without a permit. We fix it or help you get it approved.
Fire inspection failures, blocked exits, accessibility path of travel, grease traps, occupancy limits, unpermitted build-outs left behind by a previous tenant.
Building recertification and milestone inspection findings on older and coastal structures. We coordinate the engineer's report and the repairs it calls for.
How it works
Five steps. You are involved in two of them. Nobody starts work and nobody spends your money until you have approved a written scope and a price.
A phone photo of the paper is enough. If you have lost it, or it was posted on a door and blew away, send the property address instead — she can pull the case from the county's records.
Notices are written for inspectors, not owners. Susy Q translates it, then calls the city or county that issued it and confirms exactly what they need to see in order to close the case. This is the step almost everyone skips, and it is why so many cases drag on.
One document: what is wrong, what has to be done, which licensed trades are needed, what permits get pulled, roughly how long it takes, and what it costs. If the work is not worth doing, or a lawyer would serve you better, that is what the document will say.
Contractors, electricians, plumbers and engineers are scheduled, supervised and paid through her. Permits are pulled in the property owner's name where the county requires it. You get progress photos, not a mystery.
She books the inspection, meets the inspector on site, and closes the permit out. You receive written confirmation from the jurisdiction that the case is resolved — the document a title company or a buyer will ask for later.
The trade network
Most violations need more than one skill set. A single unpermitted addition can require a general contractor, an electrician, a plumber, a draftsman and a structural engineer — five companies, five schedules, five invoices, and five chances for someone to blame someone else. Susy Q works with licensed trades in every part of Florida and puts all of that on one thread.
Licensed and insured, and checked before they touch your property. Florida license status and insurance are verified on every trade she brings to a job. An unlicensed repair on a permitted violation can restart the whole case.
She is the only number you need. You do not chase five companies or referee a disagreement between them. Scheduling, site access, inspections and follow-up run through her.
Trades local to your property, not driven in from three counties away. Local crews know the local inspectors and how that particular office likes things submitted. That is often the difference between one inspection and three.
Commercial and residential run through the same process. A retail build-out left unpermitted by a previous tenant and a homeowner's enclosed patio move through the same five steps. Different trades, different paperwork, one person keeping track of it.
Already have a contractor you trust? Keep them. She will work alongside anyone you have already hired and handle the permitting and the county side around them.
Where she works
Code enforcement is run locally, so the rules, the forms and the temperament of the office change every time you cross a county line. Susy Q works statewide and adjusts to whichever office issued your notice — city or county, coastal or inland, incorporated or unincorporated.
What it costs
Nobody can quote a violation sight unseen, and anyone who does is guessing. Here is how the money actually works, so there are no surprises in the middle of it.
Send the notice, get a plain explanation of what it means, how serious it is, and whether it is something you could handle yourself. No charge and no obligation, even if you never hire her.
A single quoted fee for coordinating the whole thing — the calls, the permits, the scheduling, the inspections and the closeout. Quoted in writing in Step 03 and it does not move unless the scope does.
Trade work and permit fees are quoted by the licensed contractors doing them and passed through to you. You see each line. No markup buried in a lump sum.
Two honest notes. A violation that has already reached daily fines usually costs more to resolve than the same violation caught at the notice stage — that is a reason to send it today, not a sales line. And if the cheapest way out of your situation is to do nothing, or to call a lawyer instead, Susy Q will say so in Step 03 and you will owe nothing.
What owners say
[Replace with a real customer quote — what the violation was, what they were worried about, and what changed after the case closed. Two to four sentences in the customer's own words.]
[Full name][Replace with a real customer quote. A commercial client works well here — a landlord or business owner who needed a case closed before a sale, a lease or an inspection deadline.]
[Full name][Replace with a real customer quote. Ideally one that mentions the trades — the electrician and the plumber showing up when they said they would, and the inspection passing first time.]
[Full name]Placeholder — do not publish this section as written. Every quote needs a real, named customer who has given written permission to be quoted. Anonymous testimonials read as invented, and in a trust business they cost you more than having no testimonials at all. If you do not have three yet, publish one, or delete the section until you do.
Questions people actually ask
Neither, and that is the point. She is a code violation specialist: she reads the case, works out what the enforcing office needs, and hires and manages the licensed trades who do the physical work. She is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. When a case genuinely needs an attorney — a contested violation, a large accrued lien, a hearing you have to appear at — she will tell you early and can point you toward one.
Usually not. Old cases are common and they are rarely hopeless. The physical violation still has to be corrected first — that part does not change with age. Once it is fixed and documented, many Florida cities and counties will consider reducing accrued fines, though relief is discretionary and never guaranteed. The one thing that never helps is waiting longer.
This is one of the most common reasons people call, and it is time-sensitive in a way most violations are not. Send it the same day you hear about it. Some issues — an open permit from finished work, for example — can be closed out much faster than a full repair, and knowing which kind you have is the difference between a delayed closing and a dead one.
Both. Commercial work is a large part of the practice: retail and restaurant build-outs, warehouses, offices, multi-family and rental portfolios. Commercial cases tend to involve fire inspection, accessibility, occupancy and signage issues alongside the usual trades, and they often carry a lease or tenant deadline sitting on top of the county's deadline.
No. A good share of clients are out-of-state owners, snowbirds and investors who have never seen the notice in person. She can pull the case from county records, meet the trades and the inspector on site, and send you photos and documents at each step.
Tell her before anything else. Work done without the right permit can restart the case or add a second violation on top of the first, even when the work itself is good. It is fixable, but it is much easier to fix if she knows about it at the start rather than finding it at the inspection.
It depends on the violation and the office. Property maintenance issues can close in days. An after-the-fact permit on structural work involves drawings, review, corrections and inspections and can run a few months. The written plan in Step 03 gives you a realistic range for your case rather than a comfortable one.
Yes, and that is a reasonable worry. Handling the communication with the enforcing office is a core part of the service. You are still the property owner of record and some documents will need your signature, but you do not have to sit on hold or work out what to admit to.
Get a free case review
Fill this in, or just photograph the notice and text it. You will get a plain-language explanation of what you are dealing with, how urgent it is, and what it would take to close it. No charge, and no obligation to hire anyone.
If you are facing a hearing date or a closing date in the next few days, say so — those cases get looked at first.