In Florida the recovery fund shows up in your paperwork before it ever shows up in a claim. Any contract for repair, restoration, improvement or construction on residential property over $2,500 must legally contain a written notice about the Homeowners' Construction Recovery Fund, followed by the board's address and phone number. A contract without it is a contract from someone who either does not know the rule or is not following it, and that is worth noticing at signing.
| Service | Typical |
|---|---|
| Auto repair shop labor rateFlorida average | $138 per hour |
| Attorney hourly rateFlorida average | $297 per hour |
| Full traditional dentureFlorida average | $1,991 per arch |
Ranges last checked September 2026. They come down automatically when they are due to be rechecked.
Every figure above comes from a named source we can link to, with the date we last checked it. We publish ranges rather than single prices because a range is what a provider will actually give you: the same job moves with what is being worked on, the materials, how hard it is to get at and how busy the trade is locally. Treat these as the order of magnitude to expect before you call, not as a quote.
Where a source publishes figures state by state, this page shows the figure for this state rather than a national average. Where no state-level source exists, it shows the national range and the local factors that move a job within it. We do not scale a national number by a multiplier of our own invention.
Every range carries a review date. When that date passes the number comes down until it is rechecked, rather than sitting here undated.
Florida Statutes section 489.1425 requires that "each agreement or contract for repair, restoration, improvement, or construction to residential real property must contain a written statement" explaining recovery fund rights, with an exception for contracts under $2,500. The notice has to be substantially in the form the statute sets out, telling you that "PAYMENT, UP TO A LIMITED AMOUNT, MAY BE AVAILABLE FROM THE FLORIDA HOMEOWNERS' CONSTRUCTION RECOVERY FUND" if you lose money because of a contractor violation. It must be immediately followed by the board's address and telephone number.
Failing to include it carries a fine of up to $500 for a first violation and $1,000 per violation after that, and those fines go into the fund itself.
Read the contract before signing and look for the notice. Its absence tells you something useful about the operation you are about to pay, and it costs you nothing to ask why it is missing. Its presence tells you where to go if the job goes wrong, which is the point of the statute.
Florida sits close to the national figure on most priced services rather than at an extreme. Auto repair labor runs a little above the national average, attorney rates above the median state average, and dentures come in slightly under the national figure. The table above carries the current numbers with the month each was checked.
A quote well outside those bands is worth a question either way.
For home work, read the contract for the recovery fund notice before anything else. Then check the license with the Department of Business and Professional Regulation and confirm the category matches the work.
Get the scope in writing with a payment schedule. Florida's recovery fund, like every other state's, runs on documentation, and progress payments against undocumented scope are how homeowners end up with a claim they cannot evidence.
On any trade, ask what the quoted number covers. Florida auto shops sit close to the national labor average, so a rate well outside $130 to $150 an hour is worth a question either way.
A written statement that Florida Statutes 489.1425 requires in any contract for repair, restoration, improvement or construction on residential property, except contracts under $2,500. It tells you payment up to a limited amount may be available from the fund if you lose money because of a contractor violation, and it must be immediately followed by the board's address and telephone number.
The contractor faces a fine of up to $500 for a first violation and $1,000 per violation afterwards, paid into the fund. For you, its absence is a signal worth acting on before you sign rather than after.
About $138 an hour on the state average, close to the national figure of about $132. That covers diagnostic and repair labor only; parts, shop supplies and disposal fees are separate.
No. Verified here means one specific thing: someone at the business replied to an email we sent to the address on the listing. A business can be listed, accurate and perfectly good without having replied yet, and the listing says which it is.