Your company's licensed Florida broker, named on your DBPR registration and actually supervising the work. Below are the questions Florida property managers, rental platforms and operators ask most, answered from the statute, so you know what you need before we talk.
Renting or leasing real property for another, for compensation, is real estate brokerage under §475.01(1)(a). Florida has no separate property management license. A company that does this work must register as a brokerage under §475.15 and have an active Florida broker in a governing position: a member or manager of an LLC, or an officer or director of a corporation. Ownership is not required. The position is. If no active broker holds it, the registration is canceled.
Governing law: Chapter 475, Florida Statutes, and FREC rules at Chapter 61J2, Florida Administrative Code. The sections that come up most: §475.01 (definitions), §475.011 (exemptions), §475.15 (brokerage registration), §475.215 (additional broker licenses), §475.22 (office and sign), and §475.25 (discipline and escrow).
One broker can serve more than one Florida company. §475.215(1) lets a licensed broker hold additional broker licenses on request, one for each firm.
§475.011 lists who is outside Chapter 475. Four of its exemptions come up constantly, and each has a boundary that matters.
Most investor groups hold each property in its own LLC and want one management company to run them all. The owner exemption covers an entity leasing its own property. A management company leasing units that belong to its sister LLCs is leasing for another, even when the same people own both companies. Once it charges a fee, it is doing brokerage and needs to be registered.
The fix is straightforward. The management company registers as a Florida brokerage with a broker in a governing position. Rents and deposits can still stay with each property LLC if that is how you want the money to flow.
The onsite exemption is narrow. It covers salaried staff working from an onsite rental office at the apartment community. It does not cover a leasing team working from a central office or across several communities, and it does not cover scattered single-family homes.
Pay structure matters as much as location. Both staff exemptions turn on salary, so a bonus that rises with leases signed is transaction-based pay, whatever it is called. Paying a commission to someone who is not licensed is itself a ground for discipline under §475.25(1)(h). The one carve-out is small: §475.011(13) lets a property management firm or apartment owner pay an unlicensed tenant a finder's fee of up to $50 per transaction.
If your staff do not fit the exemption, the simplest route is to license them as sales associates and register them under the brokerage, where I supervise them as your qualifying broker. I do not do the showings or the leasing myself. That work happens in Florida, by your licensed team.
The transient exemption in §475.011(11) turns on the stay and the unit, not on how you charge. Vacation-rental stays in units licensed under Chapter 509 are exempt, whether you charge a flat fee or a percentage.
It does not reach month-to-month furnished rentals in units that are not licensed for short stays, and it does not reach annual leases. A company that mixes vacation rentals with longer stays or long-term leases needs a brokerage for that part of the business. Each vacation rental also needs its own Chapter 509 license from DBPR's Division of Hotels and Restaurants, and an unlicensed unit falls outside the exemption.
§475.22 requires an office: at least one enclosed room in a building of stationary construction, with a sign carrying the broker's or the brokerage's name and the words “licensed real estate broker.” DBPR's own guidance allows the sign on the interior of the office entrance.
FREC Rule 61J2-10.022(1) allows the office to be in a residence where local zoning permits it, and an HOA or condo association has to allow it too. A virtual office, a mail drop or a coworking desk does not meet the enclosed-room test. A dedicated private office in an executive suite can.
§475.22(2) also allows the registered office to be outside Florida if the broker agrees in writing to cooperate with DBPR investigations and to produce records on request. Sales associates must work from an office registered in the employer's name (Rule 61J2-10.022(2)).
A Florida broker is not required to have an escrow account. The duty attaches when the brokerage receives funds belonging to others (Rule 61J2-14.010). Under §83.49 the landlord or the landlord's agent may hold security deposits and advance rent, so an owner can keep them and be named as the holder in the lease.
If the brokerage does hold funds, the rules are specific: a Florida depository, deposit by the end of the third business day (Rule 61J2-14.008), the broker as a signatory, a signed written monthly reconciliation of every trust account (Rule 61J2-14.012), and no more than $5,000 of the broker's own money in a property management escrow account (§475.25(1)(k)).
Either way, the §83.49 deposit clocks still apply: written notice to the tenant within 30 days of receiving the deposit, and a written claim within 30 days after the tenant vacates, or the right to claim against the deposit is lost.
Companies taking management in-house often have a window where the new company is ready to operate but its registration has not issued. A company cannot manage for a fee before it is registered, and no broker can cover activity from before that date. Two clean ways through:
Florida broker license BK3555118, active. Look it up yourself on DBPR's license search at myfloridalicense.com before we talk.
Most Florida engagements go active within two to four weeks of signing. Entity setup and DBPR processing set the pace.
Yes, if it rents or leases property for others for compensation. That is brokerage under §475.01(1)(a), and the company must register under §475.15 with an active broker in a governing position. Owners leasing their own property, salaried onsite apartment staff, salaried condo and co-op managers, and transient rentals of Chapter 509 licensed units are the main exemptions in §475.011.
Usually not. The owner exemption in §475.011(2) covers an entity leasing its own real property. A separate management company leasing units owned by its affiliates is leasing for another, so once it charges a fee it needs to be a registered brokerage.
Only inside §475.011(4): salaried employees of the owner, or of a registered broker for the owner, working in a leasing capacity in an onsite rental office of an apartment community. Commission or a bonus tied to leases signed takes them outside it. Otherwise they need a sales associate license under the brokerage.
Not for transient stays in units licensed under Chapter 509, which are exempt under §475.011(11). Month-to-month rentals in units not licensed for short stays, and annual leases, fall back under Chapter 475 and need a registered brokerage.
It needs an office that meets §475.22: an enclosed room in a permanent building with the required sign, which can be in a residence where zoning and any association allow it. §475.22(2) allows the registered office to be outside Florida if the broker agrees in writing to cooperate with DBPR. Virtual offices and coworking desks do not qualify.
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