How to Choose a General Contractor in Florida: A Builder's Honest Checklist

Choosing a general contractor in Florida is not like choosing one anywhere else. This state licenses contractors at the state level, builds to the toughest wind code in the country, and runs a construction lien law that can put your property on the hook for a contractor's unpaid bills. Get the choice right and the project is boring in the best way. Get it wrong and you inherit someone else's business problems — stalled permits, walked-off subs, liens from suppliers you never met.

We're Metro Design-Build, a general contractor in Miami. Three generations of this family have built here — Joseph Alter, who invented the Murphy bed; Herman Alter, who ran a shop on South Beach; and David Eyal Alter, who earned his Florida GC license at 19 and holds a real estate broker's license as well. What follows is the checklist we'd hand a friend who was interviewing contractors — including us.

How do I verify a Florida contractor's license, and why does it matter so much?

Start at the Florida DBPR license search. Every legitimate general contractor holds either a Certified General Contractor license (valid statewide) or a Registered license (valid in specific local jurisdictions). Look the license up yourself — don't accept a number on a business card as proof. Check that it's current, that it's attached to the company you're actually contracting with, and whether there's any disciplinary history.

This matters for a reason beyond legality: in Florida, hiring an unlicensed contractor strips you of most of your protections. Your insurance can deny claims, permits get pulled or voided, and you have little recourse when the work fails. The state also requires the license qualifier to be genuinely tied to the business — a red flag is a "contractor" borrowing someone else's license number, which is common enough in South Florida that you should ask directly: who is the qualifier, and do they work here?

Then verify insurance the same way. Ask for certificates of general liability and workers' compensation naming you as certificate holder, sent directly from the insurance agent — not a PDF from the contractor. Metro Design-Build is a licensed and insured Florida general contractor; any firm worth interviewing will treat these requests as routine, not as an insult.

What Florida-specific risks should I screen for?

Three things separate Florida from the rest of the country, and your contractor needs a working answer for each.

The wind code. South Florida sits in the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone, and every window, exterior door, and roof assembly must be a Miami-Dade NOA-approved product with the paperwork to prove it. A contractor who can't explain design pressures and product approvals on your specific openings will learn on your project — usually at the inspection stage, where it's expensive. This is where deep local experience shows: our work in Miami Beach condo towers and Coral Gables historic districts lives and dies on getting these approvals right the first time.

The lien law. Florida's Construction Lien Law lets subcontractors and suppliers lien your property if the GC doesn't pay them — even if you paid the GC in full. Your protection is paperwork: a Notice of Commencement recorded correctly, releases of lien collected with every payment, and a contractor financially stable enough that the question never comes up. Ask how they handle lien releases. A firm that self-performs most of its work, as we do with 30+ in-house professionals and our own millwork shop, simply has fewer parties who could ever lien you.

Permitting. Florida municipalities vary wildly — Miami-Dade, Miami Beach, Coral Gables, and Fort Lauderdale each run their own review cultures and comment cycles. A contractor who works your jurisdiction constantly knows what the reviewer will flag before submitting. One who doesn't will burn months learning. Ask when they last pulled a permit in your city, for a scope like yours.

What separates a good general contractor from a great one?

Once license, insurance, and local competence are confirmed, the differentiator is how much of the work the contractor controls with its own hands.

Most Florida GCs are brokers of subcontractors: they win the job, then shop every trade. That model works until the market tightens — then your project competes for the same stretched subs as everyone else's, and the schedule becomes a negotiation among strangers. The alternative is self-performance. Our residential construction and renovation crews are employees, and our millwork — the cabinetry, paneling, and built-ins where a luxury project's money actually shows — comes out of our own shop through our expert carpentry team. When the people building your home answer to the company you hired, accountability stops being a diagram and starts being payroll.

The second separator is range with proof. Ask to stand in finished work that resembles yours. If you're combining condos, see a combined condo — ours is the Joy Fishman Residence, two units merged into a single 3,000-square-foot home. If you're renovating at the high end, walk something like the Stern Residence. Renderings prove a marketing budget; finished rooms prove a builder. Then ask what went wrong on that project. Every real one has an honest answer, and the way a contractor talks about problems is the way they'll handle yours.

What questions should I ask before signing a contract?

Six do most of the work:

1. "Who is the license qualifier, and what's the license number?" Then verify it on DBPR yourself.
2. "Send insurance certificates from your agent, naming me." Liability and workers' comp, current.
3. "How much of the work do your own employees perform?" Trades and specifics, not adjectives.
4. "How do you handle lien releases and the Notice of Commencement?" A clean, immediate answer is non-negotiable in Florida.
5. "When did you last permit a project like mine in my jurisdiction?" Recency and locality both matter.
6. "Walk me through your process from contract to closeout." A real firm can articulate it without improvising — ours is documented on our process page, and you should hold every contractor to that standard.

Notice what's not on the list: price. Get to price after these six, because the cheapest bid from a contractor who fails them is the most expensive number you'll ever accept. Low bids in Florida are usually incomplete bids — the gap comes back as change orders, priced when your leverage is gone.

Should I hire a general contractor or a design-build firm?

If your project involves meaningful design decisions — a gut renovation, a condo combination, a ground-up home — consider collapsing design and construction into one contract with a design-build firm. The traditional model prices the drawings after they're done, which is how Florida projects blow their budgets: the designer specs product the wind code rejects or the budget can't carry, and the redesign is your change order. Under one roof, drawings are priced as they're produced and specified by the people who have to get them inspected. For straightforward scopes with finished drawings, a strong GC is the right hire; for anything where design drives cost, one accountable party beats two good ones.

How do I check a contractor's license in Florida?

Search the license number or company name on the Florida DBPR website (Department of Business and Professional Regulation). Confirm the license is current, matches the entity on your contract, and carries no unresolved discipline. Certified General Contractor licenses are valid statewide; Registered licenses only in specific jurisdictions — make sure yours covers your city.

What insurance should a Florida general contractor carry?

General liability and workers' compensation at minimum, with certificates sent to you directly from the contractor's insurance agent and naming you as certificate holder. If the contractor uses subs, ask how they verify each sub's coverage — an uninsured sub's injury on your property can become your problem.

What are the red flags when hiring a general contractor in Florida?

Asking for large deposits before work begins, resisting a written contract or lien-release procedure, a license that belongs to someone not actually running the company, no local permit history, and pressure to skip permits entirely. Any one of these is a walk-away in Florida, where the lien law and wind code punish shortcuts on the owner, not the contractor.

Interviewing general contractors in Florida? Contact us or call 305-300-7996 — put us on the list and hold us to every question above.