The Standard Florida Purchase Contract
Almost every residential real estate transaction in Florida begins with one document: the Florida Realtors®/The Florida Bar purchase and sale agreement, commonly called the FR/BAR. This joint form was developed by Florida Realtors® and The Florida Bar to balance the interests of buyers, sellers, and their agents under Florida property law.
Two versions exist. The standard FR/BAR contract allows buyers to submit a written list of repair requests after the inspection period. The as-is version does not require the seller to make any repairs, but buyers retain the right to inspect and cancel during the inspection window. Both versions cover the full scope of the transaction: earnest money deposits, inspection rights, financing timelines, title review, and closing obligations.
In January 2026, Florida Realtors® updated several forms, including a revised Seller Property Disclosure form and clarifications to inspection period responsibilities. Florida Realtors® published a full breakdown of the 2026 form changes, including what was revised and why.
The as-is version of the contract is especially common in South Florida’s luxury and estate market, where sellers prefer to avoid open-ended repair negotiations on high-value properties. Whether you are purchasing a waterfront home in Palm Beach or a penthouse in Brickell, the version of the contract you sign will shape your rights and obligations from offer to close.
Both contract versions operate under Florida Statute Chapter 475 and Florida contract law. The Florida Bar publishes a consumer guide to buying a home in Florida, which covers how purchase contracts function under state law. Buyers who take the time to understand the document before making an offer are in a far stronger position than those encountering it at the signing table for the first time.
The Inspection Period: Your Primary Exit Window
The inspection period is the buyer’s most powerful protection in a Florida purchase contract. During this window, typically running 10 to 15 calendar days from the effective date (the date both parties sign), the buyer can hire licensed inspectors, review their findings, request repairs or credits, and cancel the contract if what they find is unacceptable.
Cancellation during the inspection period returns the full earnest money deposit to the buyer in most circumstances. This is why knowing the exact expiration date of your inspection period is not optional. Missing it by a single day forfeits your unconditional right to exit without consequences.
For luxury and waterfront properties in South Florida, the standard home inspection rarely tells the full story. Buyers should consider scheduling:
- A licensed structural engineer for older homes or those with visible settling or additions
- A seawall and dock inspection for properties on the Intracoastal Waterway, canals, or Biscayne Bay
- A four-point inspection covering roof, plumbing, electrical, and HVAC for insurance underwriting purposes
- A wind mitigation inspection to determine whether the property qualifies for insurance discounts under Florida law
- A pool and spa inspection for estates with substantial outdoor amenity packages
All of these should be scheduled within the first two or three days of the inspection period, not the final days. Reports take time to prepare, and you will need time to review the findings and decide whether to proceed, cancel, or request repairs before the deadline expires.
Under the as-is contract, the inspection period works differently. Buyers still have the right to inspect and cancel, but they cannot submit a formal repair request. The choice becomes binary: accept the property in its current condition or cancel and recover your deposit. The inspection period under an as-is contract is primarily about deciding whether you are comfortable with what you find, not about extracting seller concessions.
The 2026 FR/BAR updates made clear that scheduling an inspection is not the same as exercising your contractual rights. Buyers must complete the inspection, receive the report, and deliver written notice of any objections before the inspection period expires.
Financing and Appraisal Protections
If you are financing your purchase, the FR/BAR contract includes two distinct protections: a financing contingency and, in most cases, an appraisal contingency.
The financing contingency establishes a timeline for loan approval. Under the standard FR/BAR, the buyer typically has five business days from the effective date to submit a formal loan application, and an agreed-upon deadline, often 21 to 30 days out, to receive written loan approval. Florida contracts define loan approval as a formal written commitment from the lender. A conditional approval is not loan approval. A pre-qualification letter is not loan approval. Until you have a written commitment that satisfies the contract’s specific definition, your financing contingency has not been met.
This distinction has real consequences. Buyers who receive a conditional approval and assume they are covered can find themselves past the financing deadline, at which point the contingency has expired and the deposit may be at risk.
The FR/BAR contract also requires buyers to act in good faith when pursuing financing. You cannot deliberately undermine your loan application to manufacture a reason to exit the contract while keeping your deposit. If a lender denies the loan due to buyer conduct, the seller may have grounds to claim the earnest money.
In South Florida’s luxury market, all-cash offers are common and frequently preferred by sellers. Cash buyers bypass the financing contingency entirely, which can make an offer considerably more competitive. Cash closings can move within two to three weeks of the effective date, compared to 30 to 45 days for financed transactions. For buyers using a mortgage to purchase a luxury property, providing strong pre-approval documentation early in the negotiation helps offset the perceived risk sellers assign to loan-contingent offers.
The appraisal contingency protects buyers when the lender orders an appraisal that comes in below the contract price. In a market with limited comparable sales, like the upper end of Miami Beach or Palm Beach’s waterfront estates, appraisal gaps are a genuine risk. Buyers and their agents should discuss appraisal protection explicitly before signing.
Earnest Money: Deposits, Escrow, and Disputes
The earnest money deposit is the buyer’s financial commitment to the deal. In Florida, the typical deposit runs one to three percent of the purchase price. Luxury and estate transactions in South Florida frequently involve deposits well above that range, particularly when sellers are choosing between multiple competitive offers.
Under the FR/BAR contract, earnest money is typically due within three business days of the effective date. The funds go to a neutral escrow holder, most often a licensed title company, a real estate attorney, or the listing broker’s escrow account. Florida law under Section 475.25 of the Florida Statutes governs how these funds must be held and distributed.
Whether you recover your deposit if a deal falls apart depends entirely on the reason and the timing:
- You canceled during the inspection period within the contract’s terms: deposit is returned
- You exercised the financing contingency properly and loan approval was denied: deposit is returned
- You walked away after all contingencies expired without a valid contractual basis: deposit is at risk
- The seller defaulted on the contract: you may be entitled to the deposit plus additional remedies
When buyer and seller disagree over who is entitled to the escrowed funds, Florida law requires written agreement from both parties to release them. Without that agreement, the funds stay locked. For disputes involving a broker as the escrow holder, the escrow agent can petition the Florida Real Estate Commission (FREC) for an Escrow Disbursement Order on amounts below $50,000. Larger disputes, which is most of the luxury market, typically require the funds to be deposited with the local court (a process called interpleader) for judicial resolution. Florida Realtors® publishes a detailed overview of Florida escrow laws and the dispute process.
For buyers placing deposits of $100,000 or more on a luxury property, the path to recovering those funds in a dispute is not always fast or straightforward. Understanding the rules before you write the check matters considerably.
What Sellers Must Disclose in Florida
Florida imposes a specific disclosure obligation on sellers. Under the standard established by the Florida Supreme Court in Johnson v. Davis (1985), sellers must disclose all known facts that materially affect the value of the property and that are not readily observable or known by the buyer.
This is a known latent defects standard. Sellers are not required to hire inspectors or discover defects they do not already know about. But if a seller knows about a leaking roof, a history of flooding, a structural problem, a seawall failure, or a foundation issue, they are legally required to disclose it. The as-is clause does not change this. Selling as-is means the seller is not obligating themselves to make repairs; it does not give the seller license to conceal what they know.
In 2026, Florida Realtors® updated the Seller Property Disclosure form (SPDR-4) to include questions about properties located in historic districts and expanded the scope of material facts sellers should consider disclosing. Florida Realtors® provides a comprehensive summary of Florida’s real estate disclosure requirements, including what the law requires and what is considered best practice beyond the minimum standard.
Buyers should review seller disclosures carefully and cross-reference them against inspection findings. A structural issue that a seller disclosed as minor but an inspector identifies as serious creates an important data point for negotiation. A defect that the inspector found but the seller never disclosed raises a different set of questions entirely, including whether the seller had prior knowledge and what the buyer’s post-closing legal options might be if concealment is proven.
Experienced buyers in the luxury market treat the seller disclosure form as a starting point for due diligence, not a guarantee. Inspectors verify conditions; the disclosure form records what the seller says they knew.
As-Is vs. Standard Contract: A Critical Difference
Florida buyers frequently encounter two contract types, and the difference between them shapes the entire post-inspection phase of the transaction in ways that matter significantly for high-value purchases.
The standard FR/BAR contract gives buyers the right to submit a written repair request after the inspection. The seller can agree to all requested repairs, agree to some, or decline entirely. The buyer then decides whether to accept the seller’s response and proceed, or to cancel the contract and recover their deposit. There is a structured back-and-forth built into the standard form, and both parties have defined rights within it.
The as-is FR/BAR contract eliminates that negotiation. The seller is not obligated to make any repairs, regardless of what an inspection reveals. Buyers still have the full inspection period to inspect the property and cancel if they choose. But once the inspection period expires, the buyer is committed to purchasing the property in whatever condition it is in at closing, no exceptions.
In South Florida’s luxury and estate market, the as-is contract is common. Sellers of high-value properties prefer to avoid open-ended repair commitments. For a $5 million estate, a repair request could easily involve six-figure items: roof replacement, seawall reconstruction, mechanical system overhauls. As-is removes that exposure.
From the buyer’s side, the as-is contract demands a more focused inspection process. If the inspection reveals something serious, the decision is direct: accept the condition, negotiate a price adjustment or seller credit through an addendum before the inspection period closes, or cancel. Some buyers successfully negotiate a price reduction or closing credit in lieu of repairs on as-is contracts. That negotiation happens through a written addendum, agreed to before the inspection period expires. After the inspection period closes, the window is gone.
Time Is of the Essence and Why It Matters
Every standard Florida real estate contract contains language stating that time is of the essence. This phrase is not boilerplate. It carries real legal weight, and it means that every deadline in the contract is an absolute obligation, not a general target. Miss a deadline by a day and you may have waived a right, forfeited your deposit, or technically defaulted on the agreement.
The deadlines that create the most problems for buyers:
- Inspection period expiration: missing it eliminates your unconditional right to cancel and recover your deposit
- Loan application deadline: failing to submit an application by the specified date undermines your financing contingency
- Loan approval deadline: if your lender has not issued written approval in time, you must notify the seller in writing before the deadline passes or face deposit exposure
- Closing date: inability to fund or appear at closing constitutes a default under most Florida contracts
Florida contracts do include a force majeure provision, which can extend deadlines when an event outside either party’s control prevents timely performance. For Florida buyers and sellers, this clause has direct practical relevance. A hurricane making landfall, a declared state of emergency, or a major weather event that shuts down title companies and lenders can trigger the force majeure extension. Given that Florida’s hurricane season runs from June through November, this clause is worth understanding when you are transacting during that window.
The best defense against missed deadlines is straightforward: work with a broker who tracks every contract date and follows up well in advance. A 30- to 45-day transaction has multiple deadlines running simultaneously across inspections, financing, title work, and insurance. Experienced brokers build this calendar tracking into the service. Buyers who try to manage it themselves on unfamiliar ground often find the consequences expensive.
Working with Representation That Knows the Contract
Florida purchase contracts are detailed legal documents. Every clause has a purpose, every deadline carries a consequence, and the two contract versions, standard and as-is, function very differently in practice. Buyers who understand the contract before they make an offer are in a far stronger position than those who encounter it for the first time at the signing table.
That preparation starts with the right representation. At MJI Realty Group, we review the FR/BAR contract with buyers before they make an offer, not after. We track inspection deadlines, financing milestones, and closing obligations so that buyers know exactly where they stand at every stage of the transaction. South Florida’s luxury market moves quickly, and buyers who are prepared close cleanly and with confidence.
Whether you are purchasing a waterfront estate in Palm Beach, a luxury condo in Brickell, or a premium commercial property in Fort Lauderdale, the protections in your contract are only as effective as your ability to exercise them on time. The inspection period closes whether you use it or not. The financing deadline passes whether your lender is ready or not.
If you are preparing to buy a property in South Florida and want to understand your contract before you are under one, reach out to MJI Realty Group. We work with buyers who value knowing exactly what they are signing. Real estate decisions depend on individual circumstances; this is general information, not legal, tax, or investment advice for your specific situation.
