How do you check for open or expired building permits on a Brevard County, FL home?
Search the property address in Brevard County's online permit system before you close. An open permit on a Space Coast home follows the property, not the seller, so it becomes your problem the day you take title.
A buyer I talked with last year found a screen enclosure, a re-roof, and a water heater swap on a Merritt Island house, all done years earlier by a previous owner. Two of the three had permits that were pulled and never finalized. The inspections were never called. On paper, that work does not legally exist, and closing the file meant opening walls the buyer had no plans to open.
This is one of the least glamorous parts of buying a home in Brevard County, Florida, and one of the most valuable. It takes about fifteen minutes, it is free, and it happens entirely in public records. Here is how the permit history on a Space Coast property actually works and what to look for before your inspection period runs out.
What is an open permit, and why does it matter on the Space Coast?
A permit is "open" when it was issued but never closed out with a final approved inspection. The county or city still shows the job as unfinished, even if the work was physically completed a decade ago.
That matters for three reasons. First, insurance carriers writing policies in Brevard County increasingly ask about roof, electrical, and plumbing work, and an unfinalized permit undercuts your documentation. Second, when you go to sell, the next buyer's agent runs the same search you should have run. Third, if the work never passed inspection, nobody has confirmed it meets Florida's wind load and coastal building standards, which is not a small thing on a barrier island or anywhere in the Space Coast wind zone.
How long does a Florida building permit stay valid?
Under Section 105.4.1 of the Florida Building Code, a permit expires six months after issuance if the authorized work never commences, or if work is suspended or abandoned for six months after it started. Work is considered in active progress when the permit has received an approved inspection within 180 days.
Once a permit expires, it is null and void. If a replacement permit is not obtained within 180 days of that point, the building official is authorized to require that the work be removed from the site. That is the worst-case outcome, and it is rare, but it is the leverage the code gives the jurisdiction.
How do you search Brevard County building permits?
Brevard County keeps building permit records from 1990 to the present, split across two systems.
| Time period | Where to search |
|---|---|
| 2003 to present | Brevard's Advanced Service Site (BASS), the county's online citizen access portal |
| 1990 to 2002 | The county's Legacy Permit Search |
| Before 1990 | Not online. Call the Building Permits office at (321) 633-2187 |
Both search tools are linked from the county's Permit Search page. Search by address, then read every result. You are looking for a status that says issued, active, or expired rather than finaled, completed, or closed.
What if the home is inside a city instead of unincorporated Brevard County?
This trips up a lot of relocation buyers. Brevard County only issues permits for unincorporated areas. If the home sits inside Melbourne, Rockledge, Cocoa Beach, Satellite Beach, Indialantic, or Indian Harbour Beach, the permit file lives with that city's building department, not with the county.
Suntree, Viera, and most of Merritt Island are unincorporated, so those permits are in the county system. To confirm which applies, pull the property up on the Brevard County Property Appraiser site and read the Taxing District field on the left side of the record. The county's building permit FAQ walks through that same step, along with flood zone and design wind speed lookups.
Which projects on a Space Coast home usually needed a permit?
- Roof replacement, including a re-nail or secondary water barrier
- Electrical panel replacement or service upgrade
- Water heater replacement and repipes
- HVAC change-outs
- Impact windows, impact doors, and hurricane shutters
- Screen enclosures, pool cages, and lanai conversions
- Docks, boat lifts, and seawalls on waterfront Merritt Island and Rockledge parcels
- Room additions, garage conversions, and enclosed porches
- Pools and pool heaters
If a seller disclosure mentions any of these and the permit search shows nothing, that gap is worth a direct question before you release your inspection contingency.
How do you spot unpermitted work in Brevard County?
Compare three documents side by side: the permit history, the Property Appraiser's building sketch and square footage, and the listing. When a Melbourne house is marketed as four bedrooms but the county record shows three, or when the sketch does not include the Florida room everyone is standing in, that difference usually traces back to work that was never permitted.
Brevard County also publishes a code enforcement case search for unincorporated properties. A property with a history of code cases is worth a closer look, since unpermitted structures are among the most common complaints the county investigates.
What do you do if you find an open permit before closing?
Do not panic and do not walk automatically. Most open permits on Space Coast homes are administrative leftovers, not structural problems. The usual sequence looks like this.
- Call the issuing jurisdiction and ask what is required to close the permit. Sometimes it is one inspection.
- Ask the seller in writing to resolve it before closing, at their expense, as a condition of the contract.
- If the work is genuinely defective, negotiate a credit or a repair with a licensed contractor pulling a fresh permit.
- If the seller will not act, decide with clear eyes whether you want to inherit the file.
The point is not to find a reason to cancel. The point is to know exactly what you are buying in Brevard County before the money moves.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does an open permit stop a Brevard County closing?
Usually not on its own. Title companies do not always flag open permits, and lenders often do not either. That is exactly why buyers should run the search themselves rather than assume someone else did.
Who is responsible for an open permit after closing on a Space Coast home?
The property owner of record. Once you close, that is you. The cost of closing out old permits, including any corrective work, lands on the new owner unless your contract says otherwise.
Can I search Brevard County permits before I make an offer?
Yes. Permit records are public, the search is free, and you do not need to be under contract. Running it before you write an offer gives you room to price the risk into your terms instead of discovering it on day nine of a ten-day inspection period.
Fifteen minutes of public records research has saved buyers on the Space Coast tens of thousands of dollars, and it is one of the first things I run on any Brevard County home before we write. If you want a second set of eyes on a permit history in Melbourne, Merritt Island, Rockledge, Viera, or anywhere else in Brevard County, I am happy to look with you. My partner Nichole and I got your back. Reach out anytime at (321) 212-7676 or www.livingspacecoast.com.
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