Preconstruction Due Diligence Checklist for South Florida Property Owners

Preconstruction due diligence is the work you do before committing capital, while walking away is still cheap. It is not the same as feasibility analysis, which asks whether a project pencils. Due diligence asks a narrower and harder question: what is actually true about this site, and what has not been disclosed?

In South Florida the answer is rarely simple. Coastal exposure, high-velocity wind requirements, flood elevation, unrecorded easements, historic industrial use, and municipal review timelines all sit between an owner and a buildable site. This checklist is organized the way an owner should actually run it — by category, with the findings that most often change a deal.

Start With the Decision, Not the Documents

Before ordering a single report, write down what would make you walk away. A due diligence process without a defined kill criterion tends to produce a stack of reports and no decision. Owners who set thresholds in advance — maximum acceptable remediation cost, minimum buildable area, latest acceptable permit date — read the same reports very differently than owners who did not.

Then set the calendar. Due diligence periods on South Florida commercial transactions commonly run 45 to 90 days depending on complexity, and several of the items below have lead times measured in weeks. Order in sequence of lead time, not in order of importance.

Title, Survey, and What the Survey Does Not Show

Title and survey are the cheapest items on this list and the most likely to end a deal.

• Pull the full title commitment with all exception documents attached, not just the schedule.
• Read every easement. Utility, access, and drainage easements routinely sit exactly where an owner wants to build.
• Confirm setbacks, encroachments, and boundary discrepancies on a current ALTA/NSPS survey — not a survey from the last transaction.
• Check for recorded declarations, covenants, and use restrictions that limit what the zoning would otherwise allow.
• Verify there are no open or unreleased construction liens from prior work on the parcel.

That last point matters more than owners expect. Florida’s construction lien framework, including the Notice of Commencement mechanism under section 713.13, Florida Statutes, means prior improvement activity can leave traces that affect a new owner. Confirm whether any notice of commencement is recorded and still effective against the parcel.

Zoning, Entitlements, and Use

Zoning is where optimism does the most damage. The permitted use in the code is the starting point, not the answer.

• Confirm the current zoning designation and the future land use designation — they can differ, and the difference drives whether a change is administrative or political.
• Verify the specific use you intend is permitted by right, permitted conditionally, or requires a variance.
• Calculate buildable envelope yourself: setbacks, height limits, floor area ratio, lot coverage, and open space, applied to the actual survey rather than the marketing sheet.
• Confirm parking requirements and whether reductions or shared parking arrangements are available.
• Identify overlay districts, historic designations, and corridor requirements that layer additional review on top of base zoning.
• Ask what public hearings, if any, the approval path requires, and what the realistic calendar for those hearings looks like.

Jurisdictional variation across the region is significant. An approach that works in one municipality may add months in the next one over. Our guide to zoning regulations in Palm Beach County covers how that review process actually sequences.

Environmental Condition

Environmental review is the item owners are most tempted to skip on a clean-looking site, and the item most capable of producing an unbounded liability.

• Order a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment on any commercial acquisition. It is inexpensive relative to what it protects against.
• Pay attention to historical use. Former fuel storage, automotive service, dry cleaning, and light industrial uses are the recurring sources of contamination findings in this region.
• If the Phase I identifies a recognized environmental condition, budget both the time and the cost of a Phase II before you commit, not after.
• Check for wetlands, protected species habitat, and mangrove or shoreline constraints on or adjacent to the parcel.
• Confirm whether any state or federal permitting is triggered. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection is the starting point for state-level environmental permitting questions.

Flood, Elevation, and Coastal Exposure

Flood exposure changes design, cost, insurability, and financing — often all four.

• Determine the FEMA flood zone and base flood elevation for the parcel, and confirm the finished floor elevation your design will require.
• Establish whether the site sits within a coastal construction control line or similar state-regulated coastal zone, which adds a separate permitting track.
• Confirm stormwater management requirements and whether on-site retention is feasible given the parcel size and water table.
• Get an early read on flood insurance cost. It is an operating expense that can materially change the pro forma.
• Ask whether sea level rise or resiliency requirements have been adopted locally, since several South Florida jurisdictions have added freeboard requirements above the FEMA baseline.

Geotechnical and Existing Structures

Subsurface conditions are the classic source of change orders that arrive in month three.

• Commission a geotechnical investigation with enough borings to characterize the site, not the minimum count.
• Ask specifically about groundwater depth, muck or organic layers, and whether deep foundations are likely.
• On sites with existing structures, establish whether demolition, partial demolition, or reuse is intended, and whether hazardous materials surveys are required before demolition.
• For any structure being retained, obtain an existing conditions assessment and confirm what current code will require once you touch it.

Utilities and Infrastructure

Availability is not the same as capacity, and capacity is not the same as capacity you can reserve.

• Confirm water, sewer, power, and telecommunications availability at the property line, with written confirmation of capacity where possible.
• Ask about connection fees, impact fees, and utility upgrade requirements — these are frequently missing from early budgets.
• Establish lead times for utility work. Power service upgrades in particular can drive the critical path.
• Verify access and driveway permitting requirements, especially where the site fronts a state road.

Code, Permitting, and Approvals

The regulatory path is a schedule item, and schedule is cost.

• Confirm which edition of the Florida Building Code will govern, and whether an edition change is expected during your design period.
• For projects in the high-velocity hurricane zone, confirm product approval requirements for the envelope assemblies you intend to use.
• Establish the local review process and realistic review durations. In Miami-Dade, permit and inspection records are accessible through the county’s building and permitting portal, which is also useful for checking the history of prior work on the parcel.
• Identify every agency with jurisdiction — municipal, county, water management district, health department, fire, and any applicable state agency — and confirm the sequencing between them.
• Where a project needs concurrency or capacity determinations, start those early; they are frequently the longest pole.

Cost and Delivery Assumptions

Due diligence should test the assumptions the budget rests on, not just the physical condition of the site.

• Get an independent order-of-magnitude estimate rather than relying solely on a contractor’s early number.
• Test the contingency against the risks the diligence actually surfaced, rather than applying a default percentage.
• Confirm long-lead item availability for anything on the critical path — switchgear, elevators, specialty envelope components.
• Establish the delivery method before design advances far enough to constrain the choice.

Where the diligence identifies a project that is viable but tight, a formal construction project feasibility analysis is the natural next step: due diligence establishes what is true, feasibility establishes what is buildable within your constraints.

Once diligence closes and the project moves toward mobilization, the findings need to be carried into the first meeting with the contractor — our preconstruction meeting checklist sets out the agenda that turns them into agreed procedure.

Bringing It Together

A workable output from this process is short. Owners get more value from a two-page summary than a binder:

1. What did we confirm, with what evidence?
2. What remains unknown, and what would it cost to find out?
3. What did we find that changes the budget, the schedule, or the design?
4. Which findings are deal-breakers under the thresholds we set at the start?
5. What has to be resolved before closing, and what can be managed afterward?

The discipline is in item four. Diligence that never produces a walk-away recommendation is not diligence; it is documentation of a decision already made.

Discuss Your Site

If you are evaluating a South Florida site and want an independent read on what the reports actually mean for buildability, budget, and schedule, contact FALKE CORP.

This article is for general informational purposes and is not legal, environmental, or engineering advice. Owners should engage qualified Florida professionals for site-specific title, environmental, geotechnical, and code determinations.