Spring 2020, and the Obvious Thing

We decided we wanted something in Miami. You remember what travel was that spring. So we found the property remotely, off video walkthroughs and a long run of phone calls. All the things you would do now without thinking twice about it, except that back then almost nobody was doing it.

When we were ready to make an offer, I did the obvious thing. I called the agent on the listing and asked her to submit the offer on our behalf.

In California I know exactly what that means and exactly what protections come with it. I have been on the other side of that table 900 times.

In Florida it meant something else entirely. Nobody hid it from me. It simply never came up, because Florida law does not require anyone to raise it in the way a Californian would expect. I only understood what had happened once I sat down with the statute, and the statute is short enough that every buyer coming from the West Coast should read it before writing an offer.

Is a Transaction Broker Legal in Florida?

Yes. More than that, it is the default.

Florida Statute 475.278, the section that governs authorized brokerage relationships, settles it in a single sentence: all licensees are presumed to be operating as transaction brokers unless a single agent or no brokerage relationship is established, in writing, with a customer[1]. The same statute forbids dual agency in Florida outright, defining a dual agent as a broker who represents as a fiduciary both the prospective buyer and the prospective seller[1]. That catches Californians off guard in the opposite direction, because dual agency with consent is a familiar, legal arrangement back home.

A transaction broker provides what the law calls a limited form of representation, and one transaction broker is allowed to assist both sides of the same deal.

Read that back. No loyalty. No obedience. No full disclosure. Confidentiality only in the narrower form the statute defines.

That is no scandal, and nobody did anything wrong. It is a Florida default. Enormous numbers of transactions close under it every year and close well. It simply was not what I thought I was walking into, and nobody told me, because nobody had to.

Which Florida purchases the rule covers

The disclosure rules in 475.278 apply to residential sales of four units or fewer, with certain land and small agricultural sales added on[1]. A condo in Brickell or a house in Coral Gables falls squarely inside it. A California family buying a single residence in Florida is exactly who this statute was written around.

Single Agent vs Transaction Broker in Florida: The Duties Side by Side

A single agent owes you the full set of duties. That is the relationship most California buyers assume they already have, because in California that assumption is usually safe.

Here is what the statute actually assigns to each one, side by side[1].

The practical difference has very little to do with the legal text. A single agent is allowed to tell you what to do, and a transaction broker is not.

That distinction sounds abstract until you are the person on the buyer's side of the table deciding whether to push on price, whether an inspection finding is normal for that building, whether a deposit schedule is standard or aggressive, and whether the assessment history you were handed is the whole assessment history. Then it stops being abstract very quickly.

Can a transaction broker become your single agent later?

The statute does contemplate relationships changing, but only on paper. A licensee who wants to move from single agent to transaction broker needs the principal's prior written consent on a prescribed disclosure form[1]. My advice is simpler than the statute: decide the relationship you want before you see the first property, and do not try to upgrade it halfway through a negotiation, when the other side already knows how much you want the place.

How California Agency Works, and Why the Muscle Memory Misleads You

California runs on a different assumption. Our Civil Code defines a buyer's agent as an agent who represents a buyer in a real property transaction, and a dual agent as one acting for both the seller and the buyer[5]. The disclosure form every California buyer signs says a buyer's agent owes the buyer a fiduciary duty of utmost care, integrity, honesty and loyalty[4].

Even our dual agency keeps a fiduciary duty to both sides. The California form allows it only with the knowledge and consent of both buyer and seller, and the agent still may not tell one party, without permission, that the other would pay more or take less[4]. The law also requires each agent with whom you have more than a casual relationship to hand you that form[4]. So a California buyer is trained, transaction after transaction, to expect a piece of paper that tells them who is working for them.

Put the two columns next to each other and the trap is obvious. In Orange County, calling the listing agent and asking for help writing an offer is a known arrangement with known rules. In Miami, the same phone call can leave you with a licensee who is legally prevented from advising you, and you will not feel the difference until you need advice.

What a Florida Transaction Broker Does, and What It Cost Me

The duties of a transaction broker in Florida are real duties, and they are honestly performed. Which is exactly why this is so easy to miss.

Nobody in my transaction behaved badly. Nobody misled me. The property was fine and the purchase was fine.

So what did it actually cost me? I got no guidance. Not bad guidance. None. Nobody telling me what to ask for, what to push on, what was normal in that building, what I should have been worried about.

I was on my own and I did not know I was on my own.

That is the part that still bothers me. I spent 23 years telling clients that the value was never in opening a door. It is having somebody at the table who is on your side and who tells you how to negotiate. Then I went and bought a property without one.

What Saved Me Is What Most Buyers Do Not Have

I caught it, and I knew what to do about it. 23 years in, with nobody guiding me, I guided myself. I knew what to ask for and I knew what was normal. I stepped into the empty chair and ran my own negotiation, and I advocated for myself hard, because being the person on the buyer's side of that table is what I have done every day for two decades.

Which is the whole reason I am writing this.

I could fix it because fixing it is my job. A buyer without a real estate background has nothing to fall back on. You do not know what you do not know, and you cannot catch what I caught, because catching it takes hundreds of transactions to learn.

The one thing that saved me is the one thing most buyers do not have.

I have seen the other version, too. Smart, successful people from Newport Beach and Irvine, people who run companies and read every line of a term sheet, who assume real estate representation works the same in every state because it is the same industry with the same logos on the signs. It does not, and the confident buyers are the ones it catches.

When Florida Representation Has to Be in Writing

The fix is paperwork, and Florida spells out the timing. A single agent relationship has to be established in writing, and the single agent duties must be disclosed in writing before or at the time of entering into a listing or representation agreement, or before the showing of property, whichever occurs first[1]. Where there is no brokerage relationship at all, the licensee owes you only the basic duties in the right hand column of the table above, and has to disclose that in writing before showing property[1].

The settings where nobody hands you a disclosure

Some settings carve out the disclosure requirement entirely, and buyers from California tend to wander straight into them. Section 475.278(5)(b) says the disclosure requirements do not apply when an owner is selling new residential units built by the owner and the circumstances should reasonably inform the buyer that the person helping them is acting for the owner, for example through signage or name badges at a sales office[1]. The same subsection exempts bona fide open houses and model home showings that do not involve confidential information or negotiations[1].

Translate that into a Saturday in Miami. Standing in a developer's sales gallery, the person walking you through the model unit is not required to hand you a brokerage relationship notice at all. They are friendly and well informed, and they work for the developer. Treat everything they tell you about the building as the seller talking, because it is.

The national rule that now overlaps

Since August 17, 2024, the National Association of REALTORS has required buyers to sign a written agreement with their real estate professional before touring a home with them, either in person or virtually, and the compensation in that agreement must be clearly defined and is negotiable[7]. In practice that means a buyer working with a REALTOR in Florida will see a written agreement earlier than buyers did in 2020. Read it with one question in mind: does it make this person my single agent, or a transaction broker? The signature line does not answer that. The words above it do.

Is Buying a House in Florida a Good Idea? The Method I Use Now

It is a very good idea, done correctly. Florida is not the problem. Walking in with California assumptions about who is looking after you is the problem.

So here is what changed for me. It is a method now, rather than a lesson.

1. Decide what the property is for before anybody looks at anything. Live in it or rent it out. Plenty of people want both, at different times of the year, and not every building permits that. In Florida the answer sits in the condominium documents rather than the brochure, and it eliminates entire buildings before you have the chance to fall in love with one.
2. Establish who represents whom in writing before an offer exists. Upfront, on paper, so that nobody discovers their own position at the closing table. Under 475.278 a single agent relationship has to be established in writing anyway, and that disclosure has to come before or at the time you sign an agreement for representation, or before you are shown property, whichever happens first[1].
3. Bring a licensed Florida agent in from day one. Florida does not let a person operate as a broker or sales associate without a valid and current active Florida license[6]. My California license does not authorize me to practice in Florida and I will not pretend otherwise. Through our brokerage and our Luxury Portfolio network we have trusted agents across the Miami areas and the rest of the state. I choose them and brief them, and I stay in the negotiation with you.
4. Get the building's paper before the offer, and price the holding cost. The milestone inspection summary and the reserve study status tell you what the next ten years will cost. More on that below.

My job is to make sure you walk in already knowing what you want and who is beside you. Most agents let their clients learn by trial and error. I would rather build on prediction.

Trial and error is an expensive way to buy a second home 2,700 miles from where you live.

Paula Aragone

If you are still deciding between owning there part of the year and moving outright, I have written separately about buying a second home in Miami without leaving California and about moving to Miami from California.

Mistake One: Falling for the Building Before Deciding What It Is For

The answer is not in the brochure. It is in the condominium documents, and by the time most people open those they are emotionally committed and already in escrow. This is the single most common error I see with California clients buying in Miami, because the buildings there are genuinely beautiful and the sales galleries are genuinely good at their jobs.

A Florida condo resale comes with a defined document package. The buyer is entitled, at the seller's expense, to the declaration of condominium, the articles of incorporation, the bylaws and rules, the annual financial statement and budget, the inspector's summary of any milestone inspection, the most recent structural integrity reserve study or a statement that none has been completed, and the frequently asked questions and answers document[3]. The use restrictions that decide whether the place works for you live in the declaration and the rules.

Rental rules are where Orange County buyers get surprised most often, so I wrote up the rules to check before you rent out a Miami condo. If you want to know what an area feels like on an ordinary Saturday rather than in a sales brochure, that is why I wrote up what living in Coconut Grove actually looks like.

Mistake Two: Budgeting the Purchase and Not the Ownership

What it costs to buy is one number. What it costs to hold is a completely different number, and it is the one that decides whether you still love the place in year three.

Florida put something into that second number that Orange County has no equivalent for. Under Florida Statute 553.899, condominium and cooperative buildings of three habitable stories or more must have a milestone structural inspection by December 31 of the year the building turns 30, and every ten years after that[2]. A local enforcement agency may move that to 25 years where local conditions warrant it, and the statute specifically names proximity to salt water as one of those conditions[2]. Phase one is a visual examination by a licensed architect or engineer; phase two is triggered only if phase one finds substantial structural deterioration[2]. Where a phase two report identifies substantial structural deterioration, the local ordinance has to require that repairs be commenced within 365 days after the report is received[2].

So I want the inspection history before the offer goes in. The association is required to distribute the inspector's summary to every unit owner within 45 days of receiving the report, and to post the full report on its website if it is required to have one[2]. The document exists, and somebody in that building already has a copy.

If you own in Laguna Beach you know perfectly well that an ocean-adjacent HOA is no rounding error. A Florida oceanfront association sitting on a phase two finding is a different order of magnitude, and the special assessment can land after you close. For the full building checklist, see what to check before buying a Miami condo.

Mistake Three: Trusting the Sales Gallery to Explain the Relationship

New construction in Florida is sold differently, and the law reflects it. As covered above, the person in the developer's gallery owes you no brokerage relationship notice when the setting makes it reasonably clear they act for the owner[1].

My position here is firm. If you are buying preconstruction or a new tower unit, bring your own Florida single agent into the gallery on your first visit, before you register with the sales desk or sign anything. Some buyers worry this offends the developer. In my experience a serious buyer with representation gets taken more seriously, and I have never seen a good developer's team object to talking to one.

Mistake Four: Not Asking Who Is Actually on Your Side

Which is the whole point of everything above.

None of these are exotic mistakes. They are just expensive ones.

Use this before any Florida offer, and do not move on until every line has an answer in writing.

• Is the licensee helping me my single agent? If not, which relationship do we actually have?
• Where is that written, and did I receive the disclosure before I was shown property?
• Is this person also assisting the seller in the same transaction?
• Does my buyer agreement define compensation clearly, and have I negotiated it?
• Have I received the declaration, the rules, the budget, the milestone inspection summary and the reserve study status for this building?
• When does my 7 day resale voidability window start, and who is reading the documents inside it?
• Can I use the unit the way I plan to, including rentals, under the rules as written today?

Who Buying a Home in Florida Keeps Catching

The buyers I do this for usually already own something here. A house in Corona del Mar bought before the schools got competitive. A place up in Newport Coast that has quietly done all the work for them. They are not first-time buyers and they are not naive people.

They are running on twenty years of California muscle memory. In Florida, California muscle memory is the thing that gets you.

That is why my relocation practice starts on the California side. Before anyone looks at a listing in Florida, we talk through whether you are keeping the Orange County property and what the Florida purchase has to accomplish.

Ask Before You Are Emotionally Committed

I will say it once more, because it is the only reason I wrote this. I have been doing this for 23 years and I did not know to ask. If I did not, most buyers do not, and most will not find out until it no longer matters.

So if you are looking at Florida right now, ask who represents you, and ask for it in writing. Ask before you are emotionally committed to a property, because after that you will agree to almost anything.

And if you have a question about your own situation, ask it. I read them and I answer them. What is the thing nobody warned you about? I would like to know, because I clearly was not the only one.