By Gren · September 17, 2026
Florida is the easiest state in this series to describe and one of the easier ones to get badly wrong. There is no wholesaling statute. No required assignment disclosure. No cooling-off period. No registration.
What Florida has instead is a license law with a felony attached, and that felony is triggered by how you advertise. So the whole compliance question shifts from the contract to the marketing. Your paperwork can be spotless and still not save you, because the exposure is in your email blast, not in the seller's file.
The rule in one paragraph
You can assign a Florida purchase contract you signed yourself. You are acting as a principal in your own contract interest, and §475.011(2) exempts owners selling their own real property from licensing. But under §475.01(1)(a), a broker is someone who acts for another for compensation, including advertising or holding out to the public — and §475.01(1)(i) defines real property to include any interest in land, which takes in an assignment. Cross that line and §475.42(1)(a) makes operating without an active license a third-degree felony.
What the file needs
Nothing here is statutory. Florida does not tell you what to put in a contract. These are the things that keep you clearly on the principal side of the line.
You are the named buyer, and the contract allows assignment. Not "we agreed verbally." The instrument.
Model clause (seller): Buyer may assign this Contract, in whole or in part, without Seller's consent. Buyer may receive compensation for the assignment.
A voluntary disclosure to the seller. No statute requires this. Do it anyway. It costs one sentence and it removes the argument that the seller thought you were their agent.
Model clause (seller): Seller understands that Buyer may assign this Contract to another buyer for a price higher than the Purchase Price and may not close personally.
An assignment agreement that says what you hold.
Model clause (assignee): Assignor holds only contract rights under the Purchase Agreement and does not hold legal title to the Property. The assignment fee shall appear on the closing statement.
Real earnest money, deposited with a Florida title agent or attorney. A contract with a token dollar and no deposit reads like an option to waste everyone's time, and it is harder to defend as a genuine principal position.
Deadlines: there basically are none
- No disclosure timing.
- No assignment notice period.
- No registration or filing.
- No general seller right to cancel a standard wholesale contract.
One exception, and it is narrow. Keep reading.
The foreclosure screen
Before you paper anything, check whether a lis pendens is recorded on the property. If the seller is in foreclosure and the deal is structured so the homeowner keeps an interest — a leaseback, a buy-back option, an equity-purchase arrangement — you are in §501.1377 territory and the rules change completely.
That statute requires specific contract terms, including 12-point uppercase type, and it supplies a statutory notice of cancellation form you have to deliver. The homeowner may cancel without penalty until 5 p.m. on the third business day after signing. That right cannot be waived. All money comes back. Violations are FDUTPA violations with penalties up to $15,000 per violation.
Separately, §697.08 makes equity skimming a third-degree felony: buying two or more defaulted one-to-four family homes within three years and pocketing the rents without paying the loans. If your model involves acquiring defaulted properties and holding them with tenants in place, read that section carefully.
The marketing line, which is the whole game
Market your contract. Never the house.
Publicly advertising a property you do not own as available for sale, or holding yourself out as a person who sells other people's real estate, fits the §475.01 broker definition on its face. Do that without a license and you are at §475.42(1)(a) — felony, first offense.
Practical version:
- Advertise to a buyers list as "assignment of contract." Say it in those words.
- State plainly that you are an assignor, not the owner.
- Stay off the MLS. No yard signs.
- Never take a fee for introducing a buyer when you have no signed contract of your own. That is a finder's fee, it is brokerage, and there is no contract interest behind it to defend.
There is no numeric deal threshold in Florida. Nobody gets two free deals a year. Liability turns entirely on whether you acted for another for compensation or held yourself out to the public.
One more: under §475.41, a contract for a commission for brokerage services is invalid unless the person complied with Chapter 475. So if a deal does get recharacterized as brokerage, you are not just exposed to the criminal statute — the agreement you were counting on to get paid is unenforceable.
If you hold a Florida license and wholesale, disclose your licensed status and expect FREC discipline to apply on top of everything above.
Where the usual Florida write-ups get it wrong
Florida attracts more bad summaries than most states, probably because there is no statute to anchor them. Five corrections.
"HB 1009 (2024) was a wholesaling bill." It was not. HB 1009 in the 2024 session was an Earned Wage Access bill, and it died in committee. There is no enacted or pending Florida wholesaling bill I could find for 2024 through 2026.
"A first unlicensed-brokerage violation is a misdemeanor; repeats become felonies." No. Operating as a broker or sales associate without an active license is a third-degree felony from the first offense under §475.42(1)(a). Other §475.42(1) violations are second-degree misdemeanors under §475.42(2), which is probably where the confusion started. Do not plan around a first-offense misdemeanor that does not exist.
"§697.08 governs distressed property transactions." §697.08 is the equity-skimming crime, with specific elements. It is not a general rulebook for distressed deals.
"There is a $15,000 penalty" and "there are three non-waivable cancellation days." Both of those are real, and both belong only to §501.1377 foreclosure-rescue transactions. Applied to ordinary Florida wholesale deals they are simply false, and quoting them to a seller invites a conversation you do not want.
"There is a $5,000 civil penalty." Not tied to any statute I can locate. I would not repeat it.
Red flags in a file
- Marketing that shows the property as the wholesaler's own listing.
- A fee paid for bringing a buyer with no purchase contract behind it.
- An assignment with no signed purchase contract underneath.
- Seller-in-foreclosure deals carrying leaseback or buy-back promises.
- Anything that looks like equity skimming.
The short version
No Florida wholesaling statute, so no required disclosure and no cooling-off period — except on foreclosure-rescue deals, where the three-business-day right is real and non-waivable. Be the named buyer on an assignable contract. Disclose to the seller anyway. Advertise the contract, never the house. Unlicensed brokerage is a felony on day one.
Florida is permissive, which makes it easy to be sloppy. Run your numbers with the free MAO calculator, then go read your own marketing with a prosecutor's eyes.
Cut the noise. Catch the signal.
— Gren
This is general information about Florida law as of September 2026, not legal advice. Statutes change and facts differ. Before you rely on any of it for a specific deal, talk to a Florida real estate attorney. Citations: Fla. Stat. §475.01; Fla. Stat. §475.42; Fla. Stat. §501.1377; Fla. Stat. §697.08.