Can the Company That Inspects Your Mold Remove It in Florida?

Usually not for twelve months: section 468.8419 of the Florida Statutes bars a mold assessor from remediating a structure its company assessed within the last year, and bars a remediator from assessing one it remediated. The rule reaches only growth larger than 10 square feet, and it makes one exception, for a general, building or residential contractor holding the statewide contractor certificate.

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Florida licenses the mold assessor and the mold remediator separately

Before anyone quotes a mold job in your Miami-Dade home, it helps to know that Florida treats finding mold and removing it as two licensed professions. The Department of Business and Professional Regulation issues two license types under Chapter 468, Part XVI: Mold Assessor, coded MRSA, and Mold Remediator, coded MRSR. Section 468.8414 says the department licenses an applicant who meets the education and experience rules, has passed the licensing examination and has documented training in water, mold and respiratory protection, and section 468.8416 requires at least 14 hours of continuing education every two years to renew. A license here is a public record with an exam behind it, and that record is what you are really asking about when you ask who will be in your home.

Section 468.8419 keeps the two jobs a year apart, in both directions

Paragraph (1)(d) says a person may not perform or offer to perform mold remediation on a structure where the assessor or the assessor's company provided a mold assessment within the last 12 months. Paragraph (2)(d) is the mirror image: a remediator may not assess a structure it remediated in that window. The second half matters as much as the first. The company that removed the mold cannot be the one that tells you the removal worked, so any post-removal check you plan to show a buyer, a condo board or an insurer has to come from somebody else. Subsection (3) makes a violation a second degree misdemeanor the first time, a first degree misdemeanor the second time and a third degree felony after that. This is criminal law, not a trade association guideline.

Where Florida draws its line: more than 10 square feet

Both definitions in section 468.8411 are written by size. A mold assessment is an evaluation of the origin, identity, location and extent of mold growth of greater than 10 square feet, and mold remediation is the removal, cleaning, sanitizing, demolition or other treatment of mold or mold-contaminated matter of greater than 10 square feet. Ten square feet is roughly a patch 3 feet by 3 feet. Below it, the work falls outside both definitions and the separation rule has nothing to separate. Measure what you can see before deciding who to contact, including the back of the vanity and the wall of the AC closet, because that one number decides whether Part XVI is involved at all.

A Florida assessor's fee cannot depend on the findings

Section 468.8419(1)(h) bars an assessor from accepting an engagement where the assessment itself, or the fee for it, is contingent on the conclusions of the assessment. Paragraph (1)(e) bars an assessor from inspecting for a fee any property in which the assessor or the assessor's company has a financial or transfer interest, and (2)(e) applies the same bar to a remediator. That gives you two questions to put to anyone before they arrive. Is the price fixed whatever turns up? Does your company have any stake in this property or its sale? A plain yes to the first and a plain no to the second is what the statute expects to hear.

Checking a Florida mold license on the DBPR lookup

The titles mold assessor and mold remediator are protected in Florida. Section 468.8419(1)(c) and (2)(c) bar anyone who has not complied with Part XVI from using them, alone or combined with registered, licensed or professional. A title painted on a van is therefore a claim you can test. Ask for the name of the individual who will do the work and look that person up on the DBPR license search at myfloridalicense.com: an assessor should show an MRSA license and a remediator an MRSR license. Ask for the certificate of insurance at the same time. Section 468.8421 requires an assessor to carry general liability and errors and omissions coverage of at least $1 million, and a remediator at least $1,000,000 of general liability that specifically covers mold-related claims.

Adjusters, home inspectors and general contractors under section 468.841

Several people can look at mold in a Florida home without holding a mold license. Section 468.841(1)(d) and (2)(d) exempt, among others, chapter 489 construction contractors, engineers, architects, home inspectors and anyone acting on behalf of an insurer, unless they hold themselves out for hire as a mold assessor or remediator. Lawful, but not the same thing as an assessment by someone working for you. Separately, both 12-month bars carry an exception for one class of contractor, the Division I trades named in section 489.105(3): general, building and residential contractors. What that exception allows, and what you can ask for when a firm relies on it, has a guide of its own.

When Florida's mold statute does not reach you at all

Two cases need nobody. The first is the owner. Section 468.841(1)(a) and (2)(a) exempt a residential property owner who assesses or remediates mold on their own property, at any size, because Part XVI binds the people you pay rather than you. The second is the small patch. EPA says that if the moldy area is less than about 10 square feet, in most cases you can handle the job yourself, which is the same line the statute draws, and it points jobs with a lot of water damage or more growth than that toward professional guidance. A spot on the bathroom ceiling above the shower is usually a weekend job. A stain spreading along a wall shared with the unit next door is a different conversation.

What happens when you send us a Florida mold job

Tell us what you can see, roughly how big it is, and whether it is a house or a condo. The reply says which side of the 10 square foot line you appear to be on and who, if anyone, the job needs. Where it does need someone, the assessment and the removal go to different licensed companies at every size, including the case the statute exempts.