Florida lease: the official form from the state Supreme Court
A verbal understanding with the landlord counts for nothing once there is a dispute. What counts is what the lease says and what state law locks in. The good news: in Florida you do not have to hunt for a lease online. The state Supreme Court approved an official form, and it separately allowed people to fill it in without a lawyer.
What this form is and why you can trust it
The Florida Supreme Court approved standard residential lease forms for terms of one year or less, and separately allowed non-lawyers to complete them. It is a fill-in-the-blanks form: the obligations of both sides are already written out, and your job is to enter names, the address, the amounts, and tick the boxes you need.
The form comes with the text of the law attached, Chapter 83, Part II of the Florida Statutes, the Residential Landlord and Tenant Act. That is the law that applies no matter what the landlord writes into the lease.
The original is published by the Florida Bar. We keep a copy here so the file opens fast and does not depend on someone else’s site.
If you are renting a condo
This form is written for a house or a duplex. When you rent an apartment, the landlord will usually hand you their own form or the management company’s, and that is normal. Use the official form as a checklist instead: make sure the lease you are offered covers the same points, and pay attention if one of them is missing.
What to check before you sign
- Who the landlord is. The lease should name the owner or the manager and give a mailing address. If the person showing you the apartment is not named in the lease, ask what gives them the right to rent it out.
- Term and move-in date. When the lease starts and ends, what happens after it ends, and on what terms it renews.
- How much and where you pay. The amount, the day of the month, the payment method, and the address or account it goes to. Late fees separately.
- Every up-front payment listed on its own line. The form has separate fields for them: first month, prorated rent, advance rent, last month, security deposit, additional deposit, association deposit and pet deposit. If your lease shows one lump sum with no breakdown, ask for it to be itemised.
- Who is responsible for what. Utilities, trash, air conditioning, the pool, the lawn, small repairs. The landlord’s duty to maintain the place is set by law, but the details are easier to pin down in the lease.
- Pets, guests, subletting. Even if the landlord said “of course you can”, it has to be in the text.
- How the landlord enters the apartment. The lease should say how much notice they give and in what situations.
- Where official notices go. Florida law separately covers electronic delivery of notices (section 83.505), so agreeing to receive them by email is recorded explicitly.
Required disclosures
If the building was built before 1 January 1978, a lead paint disclosure has to be attached to the lease. Florida law separately requires a flood risk disclosure for rental housing (section 83.512), which in Florida is not a formality.
What not to do
The form itself says in capital letters that changes and additions should only be made after talking to a lawyer. Writing in a clause of your own that “seems clear enough” is a bad idea: those are exactly the inserts that fall apart in a dispute.
Before you sign
The Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services advises something simple: walk through the apartment with the landlord before signing, write down every defect you notice, photograph them, and attach the list to the lease, signed by both sides. Five minutes that later decide the fate of your deposit. We wrote about the deposit itself in this guide.
We are not lawyers and this text is not legal advice. It explains where to find the primary sources and what to look at. Primary sources: Chapter 83 of the Florida Statutes and the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services guide.
