You’re about to make the biggest purchase of your life off a half-hour walkthrough and a set of flattering photos. Everybody does it that way. The trouble is that the stuff that actually bites you later doesn’t turn up on a walkthrough — it’s buried in public records you’ve never had a reason to open. A debt stuck to the property. Fines that have been climbing for years. A back patio nobody ever pulled a permit for. We go pull all of it. Here’s what tends to surface.
Money the place owes
A lien is a debt tied to the property instead of the person who ran it up — and that’s the part that gets people. When the house changes hands, a lot of those debts come along for the ride. You buy the house, you buy the bill. They come from all over: a contractor who never got paid, a court judgment, back association dues, old taxes. We find what’s recorded against the property, and we flag the ones that look paid off but were never actually cleared on paper.
Close on the wrong house and you can spend your first month as an owner paying off a stranger’s debt.
Back taxes
If the taxes are behind, Florida doesn’t mess around — the county can sell the right to collect that debt to an investor, who then holds a claim against the property. We pull the current tax status so you know whether you’re walking into a clean slate or a hole someone’s been digging for years.
Fines that grow while you sleep
The city writes properties up for things that are out of code — an illegal addition, an unsafe structure, a lot that’s turned into a jungle. Here’s the kicker: plenty of those fines climb every single day until somebody fixes the problem. A small thing nobody dealt with a few years back can be sitting on five figures by now — and it lands on whoever owns the place next. That would be you.
Work nobody pulled a permit for
That renovated kitchen, the converted garage, the newer roof — were they permitted? If not, it’s your headache the day you own it. Unpermitted work can sink an insurance claim, tank a future sale, or get flagged and have to be torn out and redone to code on your dime. We pull the permit history so you can see what was done by the book and what was done on a Saturday with a cousin.
The five-figure surprises
Some properties come with flags you’d never guess from the curb — contamination, a mandatory sewer hookup that can run twenty grand, a flood-zone designation that drives your insurance up for as long as you own the place. We surface them now, while you can still walk away, instead of letting them turn up in the mail after you’ve got the keys.
Whether the seller can even sell it
Sounds basic. It’s also where deals quietly fall apart. An estate that was never sorted out, an ex still on the deed, a company that doesn’t match who’s signing — any of it can mean the person selling doesn’t have a clean right to. We check who actually owns it before your money is on the line.
Think of it as a credit check for the house
You’d never take out a car loan without someone pulling your credit first. This is the same move for the single biggest purchase you’ll ever make: a fast look at the property’s record before you commit. One straight answer — it’s a $59 check, not a full certified title search. It’s the first look that tells you whether to keep going, push back on the price, or walk. And if it comes back clean? Now you actually know.