Florida Landscape Business Practices and Contracting
What this domain tests
Business Practices and Contracting covers how a Florida landscape company may legally sell, staff, and get paid for work: licenses and exemptions, contracts and cancellation rights, construction liens, taxes, insurance, and the 811 damage-prevention law. Questions are scenario-based - a date, a contract term, or a mix of credentials that makes a job legal or illegal.
Licensing and who may apply what
- Florida issues no single statewide landscape contractor license. Most landscape and irrigation work is licensed, or not, at the county or city level, so always confirm the local competency card.
- Structural work such as walls, decks, and pergolas usually falls under a DBPR certified or registered specialty contractor (Chapter 489, Part I).
- Applying any pesticide for hire needs an FDACS Chapter 482 license. The Limited Commercial Landscape Maintenance certificate is narrow: plant beds only, caution-label products, no more than 3 gallons of dilute solution per application, never turf.
- Applying fertilizer for hire needs the Green Industries BMP (GI-BMP) certificate under s. 482.1562, F.S., renewed every four years.
Contracts and liens
- Put scope, schedule, payment schedule, change-order procedure, warranty, and insurance requirements in writing.
- Florida's Home Solicitation Sales Act gives a buyer three business days to cancel a contract over $25 signed somewhere other than the seller's fixed place of business.
- On jobs over $2,500 the owner should record a Notice of Commencement; a subcontractor or material supplier without a direct contract must serve a Notice to Owner within 45 days of first furnishing labor or materials.
- A lien foreclosure suit must be filed within one year of last furnishing.
Worked example
A crew first installs plant material on March 3 on a job with a recorded Notice of Commencement, and the company has no direct contract with the owner. Count 45 days from first furnishing, not from the contract date: March 3 plus 28 days reaches March 31, plus 17 more days reaches April 17. Serving the Notice to Owner on April 17 preserves lien rights; serving it on April 20 loses the claim against the owner's property, leaving only a contract claim against the general contractor.
Traps
- Assuming a state landscape license exists, or that one county card works statewide.
- Counting lien deadlines from the proposal date.
- Treating the three-day cancellation right as applying to sales made in your own office.
- Quoting plant material without the county discretionary sales surtax on retail sales.
- Forgetting that construction employers with even one employee need workers' comp.