Selling a House With Code Violations or Liens in Florida & Georgia

A letter from the city code enforcement office. A county lien for an unpaid water bill. A $15,000 judgment from a contractor you never hired. An open permit the previous owner left behind ten years ago. If any of this sounds familiar, you are not alone — and you are definitely not stuck. Every year, Homeinc purchases hundreds of Florida and Georgia homes with code violations, unpermitted work, and title liens that have scared off traditional buyers. This guide explains exactly how it works, what to expect, and how to walk away with cash even when the paperwork looks terrifying.

Why Code Violations and Liens Kill Traditional Home Sales

A mortgage lender will not fund a loan on a home with open code violations or unresolved liens, period. This single fact is what traps so many homeowners. You list the property, you accept an offer, you make it to the title search — and that’s where the deal dies. The buyer’s title company flags the lien or the municipality flags the violation, the lender refuses to close, and you’re right back where you started, minus a few months of your life and several hundred dollars in inspection fees.

Even cash investors often walk away. Most investors use hard-money loans, and hard-money lenders run title the same way a bank does. The only buyers who can truly close on a home with complex title or code issues are true cash buyers like Homeinc — principals who use their own funds and have the in-house title expertise to solve problems instead of running from them.

The Most Common Code Violations We See

Across Florida and Georgia, the code violations that appear on the homes we buy are remarkably consistent. Overgrown lot violations are the number one issue — a vacant or vacation property that triggered a mow-the-lot fine, which then accrued daily penalties of $250 or more until it ballooned into five figures. Unpermitted work is second — enclosed porches, added bathrooms, converted garages, re-roofs, and electrical panel swaps done without pulling permits. Structural violations include unsafe stairs, rotten decks, rotting fascia, and derelict pools. Junk and debris violations, unregistered vehicles on the property, and illegal short-term rental notices round out the list.

In Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties, a single uncorrected violation can compound at $250 per day. In DeKalb and Fulton counties in Georgia, we’ve seen liens from initial $500 fines grow past $40,000 over three years. These fines become a municipal lien that attaches to the property — and in most jurisdictions, they have to be paid at closing before the title can transfer.

The Most Common Liens on Florida and Georgia Homes

Municipal liens — from code enforcement, unpaid water, unpaid trash, or unpaid storm-water fees — are the most common. Mechanic’s liens come from contractors or subcontractors who weren’t paid, even if the homeowner did pay the general contractor. HOA and condo liens appear when dues or special assessments go unpaid; in Florida, these can foreclose faster than a mortgage. IRS and state tax liens are filed against the owner personally but attach to all real property they own. Judgment liens from lawsuits, divorces, or credit card collections also attach automatically once recorded in the county.

Most sellers don’t even know a lien exists until they try to sell. Title companies run the search, pull up three or four surprises, and suddenly the “simple sale” becomes a months-long negotiation with creditors, courts, and bureaucrats.

How Homeinc Handles Code Violations and Liens

Our in-house acquisitions and title team handles hundreds of these transactions a year. Here’s the playbook.

Step 1: We Pull Title Before We Make an Offer

Unlike most buyers, we run a preliminary title search early in the process. This costs you nothing and surfaces the exact issues we’ll need to resolve. We’ll share everything we find with you in writing — often, sellers learn about liens they didn’t know existed.

Step 2: We Price Around the Problem, Not Around You

Our offer is based on the property’s after-repair value minus repairs, minus the payoffs and settlement costs for every known violation and lien. That means the liens come out of the sale proceeds, not out of your pocket. If the numbers work, you leave closing with cash in hand and a clean conscience.

Step 3: We Negotiate Payoffs Directly

Municipalities will often reduce or “mitigate” accrued code fines at closing, especially if the new owner commits to bringing the property into compliance. In Miami-Dade, for example, the lien-reduction board regularly cuts six-figure accrued fines down to a fraction of face value. Homeinc’s team handles these mitigation applications routinely. We’ve negotiated lien reductions of 60% to 90% for our sellers. We do the calls, the paperwork, and the hearings — you sign the sale documents.

Step 4: We Close in 7 to 21 Days

Most code-violation and lien sales close in one to three weeks, depending on how quickly the municipalities respond. You never deal with the bureaucrats directly. You pick the closing date.

What About Unpermitted Work?

Unpermitted work is one of the most common reasons homeowners call us. A seller may have added a bedroom, enclosed a carport, or built a back deck without realizing a permit was required. When they go to sell, the buyer’s inspector flags it, the appraiser notes it, and either the municipality opens a new violation or the lender refuses to fund.

Homeinc buys homes with unpermitted work as-is. We either retroactively permit the work after closing, or we demolish and remediate. Either way, you are not responsible for bringing the home into compliance before the sale. This is one of the single biggest advantages of working with a cash buyer.

Selling With a Lien That’s Bigger Than the Home’s Value

Sometimes the liens, mortgage, and violations exceed what the home is worth. This is what real estate professionals call an underwater property. In those situations, you have options, but they’re narrower:

If your mortgage is the issue, a short sale may work — the lender agrees to accept less than the full payoff. Homeinc has negotiated hundreds of short sales across Florida and Georgia, and we handle the lender paperwork in-house. If the liens are the issue, we work with each lienholder to negotiate a reduced payoff. On rare occasions, we purchase subject to the existing financing. Every situation is different — our acquisitions team can tell you within 48 hours whether your specific combination of debts has a viable cash-sale path.

Homeinc’s 3-Step Process, Even With Complicated Title

Step 1: Tell us about your property at homeinc.com/get-my-offer. Five minutes, no obligation. Be honest about the violations and liens you know about — it helps us move faster.

Step 2: We run a preliminary title search and send a written cash offer within 48 hours, along with a plain-English explanation of what we found in title.

Step 3: You accept, we schedule closing, we negotiate with the municipalities and lienholders, and you walk away with cash in 7 to 21 days.

Why Florida and Georgia Sellers Choose Homeinc

Homeinc has been buying houses across Florida and Georgia for over a decade. We’re an A+ rated, BBB-accredited business with more than 950 five-star Google reviews. Our team includes licensed title agents, former code-compliance professionals, and a dedicated mitigation specialist whose only job is to get code liens reduced. When you call a “we buy houses” sign on the side of the road, you don’t know who you’re getting. When you call Homeinc, you know exactly what you’re getting: a track record, a process, and a written offer.

The Bottom Line

A code violation is not a dead end. A lien is not a death sentence for your sale. Unpermitted work is not a deal-breaker. Thousands of Florida and Georgia homeowners have walked into our closings thinking they had an unsellable house — and walked out with a check. Whatever paperwork is buried in your mailbox, whatever the code office keeps sending, whatever the title company flagged last year — we’ve seen it, and we’ve solved it.

Get my cash offer →

No judgment. No red tape. Just a real offer from a real buyer who isn’t afraid of a messy title.