Selling a Florida House With a Past Sinkhole Claim

Yes, you can sell a Florida house that had a sinkhole claim, and these houses sell every month. Florida law is specific about what you owe the buyer: if a sinkhole claim was made and paid by your insurer, you must disclose before closing that a claim was paid and whether the full amount of the proceeds was used to repair the damage. That is the legal requirement. The practical requirement is a complete document package, because buyers are not afraid of a repaired sinkhole, they are afraid of an undocumented one.

I sell in Pasco and Hernando County regularly, and sinkhole history is simply part of the conversation there. It is not a scarlet letter. It is a disclosure item with a paperwork solution.

What exactly does Florida law require you to disclose?

The controlling language is in Fla. Stat. 627.7073(2)(c):

"The seller of real property upon which a sinkhole claim has been made by the seller and paid by the insurer must disclose to the buyer of such property, before the closing, that a claim has been paid and whether or not the full amount of the proceeds was used to repair the sinkhole damage."

Two separate facts, both required: that a claim was paid, and whether the full proceeds went into the repair.

That second one is where people get into trouble. Plenty of owners settled a claim, did a partial repair, and kept the difference. That was their right. But it has to be disclosed, and vaguely saying "there was some work done" does not satisfy the statute.

Separately, Florida's general disclosure duty requires a seller to disclose known facts materially affecting the value of the property that are not readily observable to the buyer. A past sinkhole is squarely in that category regardless of whether an insurance claim was involved.

The buyer will find out anyway

This is the part sellers underestimate. Under the same statute, an insurer that pays a sinkhole loss claim must file a copy of the report and certification with the county clerk of court, who records it. The insurer pays the filing cost.

So the sinkhole report is in the public record, attached to your property, searchable by anyone. Any decent buyer's agent, title examiner, or insurance underwriter will find it. There is no version of this where you quietly get to closing and nobody noticed.

Which reframes the whole question. You are not deciding whether to disclose. You are deciding whether the buyer learns it from you, with documentation, on day one, or learns it from a title search on day 20 and immediately assumes you were hiding something. The first version closes. The second version blows up or gets repriced.

The document package to build before you list

Do this before the sign goes in the yard. Every item you cannot produce becomes a discount the buyer asks for.

• The complete insurance claim file. The claim number, the carrier, the date of loss, the adjuster's report, and the settlement amount.
• The geotechnical or engineering investigation report. This is the single most valuable document you own. It says what was actually found, how deep, and what the engineer recommended. Buyers and underwriters read this one.
• The repair scope and the engineer's recommendation. What was proposed versus what was done.
• Proof of what was performed. Contractor invoices, grout logs if compaction grouting was used, underpinning details, permits, and inspection sign-offs.
• The engineer's letter of completion. A post-repair letter stating the work was completed per the recommendation, sometimes called a certificate of completion or a closure letter. If you have this, lead with it.
• A warranty, if one was issued. Some subsurface repair contractors issue warranties. Find out whether yours is transferable to the buyer. A transferable warranty is a real selling point.
• Your own insurance history since the repair. If you have carried coverage on the house since the work was done, that tells a buyer something useful.

If the proceeds were not fully used for repair, say so plainly and have an answer for what was and was not done. A seller who says "we grouted the two voids the engineer identified and used the remainder on the interior cosmetic damage, here are the invoices" is in a strong position. A seller who shrugs is not.

How it affects the buyer's insurance, which affects your price

Here is the chain that actually determines what you net.

A buyer getting a mortgage needs property insurance. The underwriter sees the recorded sinkhole report. What happens next depends almost entirely on the quality of your documentation.

What you can produce	Typical insurance outcome	Effect on your sale
Engineering report, full repair, completion letter, transferable warranty	Insurable, often with a catastrophic ground collapse exclusion rather than a full decline	Sells to financed buyers at a modest discount
Repair done but no completion letter	Harder. Some carriers decline, some require a new engineering inspection	Longer days on market, bigger concessions. Worth paying an engineer now
Claim paid, proceeds not used for repair	Frequently uninsurable for a new buyer until remediated	Realistically a cash sale, priced accordingly

Notice the pattern. The gap between row one and row two is often a single engineering letter. If you repaired the house properly but never got documentation, spending a few hundred to a few thousand dollars on a current engineering evaluation is usually the highest-return money you will spend on this sale.

Also understand what "insurable" means now. Florida law separates sinkhole loss coverage from catastrophic ground cover collapse. Standard policies must include catastrophic ground cover collapse, which is a narrow trigger requiring actual structural condemnation. Broader sinkhole loss coverage is a separate, optional, and increasingly expensive endorsement. A buyer may well get a policy on your house and still not have the sinkhole coverage they assume they have. Say that out loud to them. It builds trust and it is true.

Selling as-is, and when that is the right call

Most Florida residential contracts are written as-is with a right to inspect. As-is does not reduce your disclosure duty by one word. It means you are not agreeing in advance to make repairs, not that you can stay quiet.

As-is is the right structure when the proceeds were not used for repair, when the remediation would cost more than the value it adds, or when you simply do not want to manage subsurface work on a house you are leaving. In those cases you are usually selling to a cash buyer or an investor, the price reflects the open condition, and everyone knows what they are buying. That is a legitimate, clean transaction.

What is not legitimate is marketing the house as repaired when it was not, or putting "no known issues" on a disclosure when a report sits in the county record. Florida has a four-year statute of limitations on fraud and nondisclosure claims in real property transactions, and a recorded engineering report makes a buyer's case very easy to prove.

Pasco and Hernando specifics

Central Florida's karst geology means limestone bedrock with naturally dissolving voids, and Pasco and Hernando sit in the most active part of it. Hernando in particular has long-documented sinkhole activity, and the Florida Geological Survey maintains a subsidence incident database.

What that means practically for a seller there: buyers in those counties are not shocked. Many have already looked at other homes with sinkhole history. Local agents, local inspectors, and local insurance agents all know the drill. You have a more educated buyer pool than you would in, say, Pinellas. That works in your favor if your documentation is clean.

It also means neighborhood context helps. If the engineering report shows a localized void that was grouted, and the subdivision has not had widespread activity, say that. Specific beats vague.

From my desk

I took a listing a while back in a north Tampa Bay subdivision where the owners had settled a sinkhole claim about eight years earlier. They had done the repair. They had the invoices. What they did not have was the engineer's completion letter, because the engineering firm had since closed.

Their previous attempt to sell, before I was involved, had gone under contract twice and died both times at the insurance step. Both buyers walked. The house got a reputation in the neighborhood.

We spent about $2,200 on a current geotechnical evaluation with a licensed engineer, who reviewed the old repair records, did his own testing, and issued a present-day letter on the condition of the structure. We put that letter, the original report, every invoice, and the permit records into a single PDF and handed it to every buyer agent before they showed the house.

It went under contract in under three weeks and the buyer's insurance cleared without drama. The $2,200 did not fix the sinkhole. The sinkhole was already fixed. The $2,200 fixed the paperwork, which was the actual problem the whole time.

My take: with a past sinkhole claim, your money goes into documentation, not into price reductions. Sellers get this backwards.

Related reading

• Florida sinkholes: what home buyers need to know
• What fails a Florida 4-point inspection?
• Tampa Bay insurance partners
• What selling with me looks like
• Florida home inspection guide

Frequently asked questions about selling with a sinkhole claim

Can I sell a house in Florida that had a sinkhole claim?

Yes. Florida law does not prevent the sale. It requires disclosure. Under Fla. Stat. 627.7073(2)(c), a seller whose sinkhole claim was paid by an insurer must disclose before closing that a claim was paid and whether the full amount of proceeds was used to repair the damage.

Do I have to disclose a sinkhole claim if the house was fully repaired?

Yes. The disclosure duty applies to the fact that a claim was paid, regardless of how complete the repair was. A full, well-documented repair is good news you should disclose proactively, since the buyer's insurance underwriter will find the recorded report anyway.

Is a sinkhole report public record in Florida?

Yes. An insurer that pays a sinkhole loss claim must file the report and certification with the county clerk of court, who records it, with the insurer paying the filing cost. Title examiners, buyer agents and insurance underwriters routinely find these.

Can a buyer get insurance on a home with a repaired sinkhole?

Often yes, especially with an engineering report, proof of completed repair, and a completion letter. Carriers may write the policy with a sinkhole loss exclusion while still including the statutorily required catastrophic ground cover collapse coverage. Without documentation, declines are much more common.

Does selling as-is remove my disclosure obligation?

No. As-is means you are not agreeing to make repairs. It does not reduce your duty to disclose a paid sinkhole claim or other known material facts that are not readily observable to the buyer.

Sources

• Fla. Stat. 627.7073, Online Sunshine (seller disclosure and clerk of court filing)
• Fla. Stat. 627.706 (sinkhole loss coverage and catastrophic ground cover collapse)
• Florida Geological Survey, Florida Department of Environmental Protection (subsidence incident reporting)

Last updated October 2026. By Barrett Henry, Broker Associate, REMAX Collective, leader of The NOW Team. 23+ years of real estate experience, REMAX Hall of Fame 2024, e-PRO, MRP, SRS. Disclosure questions specific to your property should go to a Florida real estate attorney.