Florida’s statute of repose sets an absolute deadline for filing certain lawsuits, and it runs from a fixed event — like a certificate of occupancy or a product’s delivery date — rather than from when someone discovers the harm. For construction defect claims, the deadline is seven years. For most product liability claims, it is twelve years. For medical malpractice involving fraud or concealment, the outer limit is seven years from the incident. For fraud generally, twelve years. Once one of these windows closes, the claim is gone, even if the injured person had no way of knowing about the injury.
Why Repose Is Not the Same as a Statute of Limitations
Both set deadlines, but they measure time differently and mean different things. A statute of limitations usually begins when a person discovers or should have discovered the injury. A statute of repose begins on a fixed calendar event and keeps counting whether anyone knows about the problem or not.
The consequences also differ. A limitations period bars enforcement of an existing claim. A repose period is stronger: it prevents the claim from ever coming into existence once the deadline passes. The Florida Supreme Court put it this way in Kush v. Lloyd: a statute of repose “not only bars an accrued cause of action, but will also prevent the accrual of a cause of action where the final element necessary for its creation occurs beyond the time period established by the statute.”1Justia. Kush v. Lloyd
That distinction has a practical effect. Courts cannot extend a repose period under the equitable doctrines they sometimes use to save a late limitations claim — fraud, incapacity, or delayed discovery. Repose is a substantive cutoff, not a procedural one. The legislature drew these lines to give builders, manufacturers, and other defendants finality after a set number of years.
Construction Defect Claims: Seven Years
Florida’s construction defect repose period is seven years. The legislature shortened it from ten through SB 360, effective April 13, 2023.2Florida Senate. CS/SB 360 – Causes of Action Based on Improvements to Real Property Any claim based on the design, planning, or construction of an improvement to real property must be filed within that window.
The clock starts on the earliest of these events: the date the local authority issues a temporary certificate of occupancy, a certificate of occupancy, or a certificate of completion, or the date construction is abandoned if the project was never finished.3The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 95.11 – Limitations Other Than for the Recovery of Real Property “Earliest” is the operative word. If a certificate of occupancy issues in January and a certificate of completion follows in March, the countdown begins in January.
Latent defects like slow water intrusion or hidden foundation cracks do not extend the repose window. The statute of limitations for these claims uses a discovery rule, so the filing clock starts when the defect is found or should have been found. But the seven-year repose period overrides that discovery rule. After seven years, the claim is dead regardless of when anyone noticed the problem.
A few wrinkles catch homeowners and contractors off guard:
- Each building in a multi-building project is treated as its own improvement, with its own seven-year clock running from its own triggering event.
- If a newly constructed single-dwelling home is used as a model before sale, the clock starts on the date a deed is first recorded transferring title, not on the original certificate of occupancy.
- Warranty repairs do not restart the repose period. An owner who assumes a post-construction fix bought them more time has already lost time they cannot recover.
Product Liability Claims: Twelve Years
Florida’s product liability repose period is twelve years from the date the product is delivered to its first purchaser or lessee who was not in the business of selling, leasing, or using the product as a component in manufacturing another product.4Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 95.031 – Computation of Time A defective product that injures someone thirteen years after that delivery cannot be the basis for a lawsuit, even if the defect was undetectable until the moment of injury.
The statute presumes a useful life of ten years or less unless the manufacturer says otherwise. If a manufacturer warrants or labels a product as having a useful life exceeding ten years, the repose period extends to match the warranty or label, or twelve years, whichever is later.4Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 95.031 – Computation of Time A product carrying a fifteen-year warranty would carry a fifteen-year repose period.
Several categories of products are exempt from the twelve-year deadline entirely:
- Commercial aircraft used for carrying passengers or freight commercially or under contract.
- Vessels exceeding 100 gross tons.
- Railroad equipment used for commercial or contract passenger or freight service.
- Improvements to real property, including elevators and escalators, which fall under the construction defect framework instead.
The Florida Supreme Court upheld the twelve-year cutoff as constitutional in Pullum v. Cincinnati, Inc., concluding that the legislature “reasonably decided that perpetual liability places an undue burden on manufacturers, and it decided that twelve years from the date of sale is a reasonable time for exposure to liability.”5Justia. Pullum v. Cincinnati, Inc.
General Aviation Aircraft
General aviation aircraft operate under a separate federal repose regime. The General Aviation Revitalization Act imposes an eighteen-year repose period running from delivery to the first purchaser or lessee, and it supersedes any state law that would allow a later claim.6GovInfo. General Aviation Revitalization Act of 1994 Florida’s twelve-year product liability repose does not apply. The line between commercial aviation (exempt from Florida’s repose) and general aviation (subject to the eighteen-year federal repose) is one that catches litigants off guard. Federal courts have read GARA strictly, holding that the repose period for a component may run from the date that component was first delivered as part of a completed aircraft, even if it was later installed in a different aircraft.
Medical Malpractice Claims: Two, Four, and Seven Years
Medical malpractice deadlines layer a statute of limitations on top of a statute of repose. The baseline is a two-year limitations period from when the incident occurred or when it was discovered or should have been discovered with reasonable diligence. Regardless of when discovery happens, no claim can be filed more than four years after the incident.3The Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 95.11 – Limitations Other Than for the Recovery of Real Property
When fraud, concealment, or intentional misrepresentation kept the patient from discovering the malpractice, the four-year cap extends to seven years. That seven-year mark is the absolute repose deadline. Even a deliberately concealed surgical error cannot be sued on once seven years have passed.
There is one important exception. A claim brought on behalf of a minor can be filed on or before the child’s eighth birthday, even if the seven-year repose period would otherwise have run out. This protects children harmed by malpractice at birth or in early infancy, when the full extent of the injury may take years to become apparent.
Fraud Claims: Twelve Years
Fraud claims, including constructive fraud, carry a twelve-year statute of repose measured from the date the alleged fraud was committed. The statute of limitations itself runs from discovery, but the twelve-year outer limit is absolute. No amount of careful concealment extends the window.4Florida Legislature. Florida Statutes 95.031 – Computation of Time A scheme that stays hidden for twelve years results in permanent immunity from civil liability, no matter how egregious the conduct.
How Courts Enforce These Deadlines
Florida courts treat repose deadlines as jurisdictional walls. When a defendant raises the statute of repose, the judge does not weigh the merits of the underlying claim. The only question is whether the lawsuit was filed before the deadline. If not, the case is dismissed.
Real disputes tend to focus on identifying the triggering event. Construction cases argue over when a certificate was actually issued or whether a project was truly abandoned. Product liability cases turn on delivery records and whether the item that caused injury was the one originally delivered or a later replacement. Medical malpractice cases require pinpointing the exact date of an incident, which is not always obvious when a course of treatment spans months.
The burden of proving timely filing falls on the plaintiff. Courts examine contracts, government records, sales receipts, and delivery logs, and they do not extend the benefit of the doubt to a plaintiff who cannot pinpoint the triggering date. Appellate courts have refused to carve out equitable exceptions for plaintiffs who could not have discovered the harm sooner. That is the entire point of repose: it trades individual fairness for systemic certainty.
What Can and Cannot Shift the Clock
A few situations do change the analysis, and several that plaintiffs commonly hope will change it do not.
Active-Duty Military Service
Federal law requires that active-duty military service be excluded from “any period limited by law, regulation, or order for the bringing of any action or proceeding” in state or federal courts.7Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 50 U.S. Code 3936 – Statute of Limitations The statutory language is broad enough to arguably reach statutes of repose, though the provision is titled “Statute of limitations” and courts have not uniformly resolved whether it tolls repose. A servicemember whose repose window ran during deployment should raise the argument early, before dismissal.
Environmental Contamination Does Not Get a Federal Rescue
Some plaintiffs have hoped that federal environmental law would override state repose deadlines for latent toxic tort claims. It does not. The U.S. Supreme Court held in CTS Corp. v. Waldburger that CERCLA’s federal discovery rule for hazardous-substance claims does not preempt state statutes of repose, reasoning that CERCLA’s text refers to “statutes of limitations” and the two serve different purposes.8Legal Information Institute (LII) / Cornell Law School. CTS Corp. v. Waldburger Florida’s repose deadlines still apply. Someone who discovers groundwater contamination years after a polluter stopped operating cannot use CERCLA to reopen a repose window that has already closed.
Warranty Repairs and Indemnity Promises
Correcting defects under warranty does not restart the construction repose clock. Contractual indemnification promises do not survive the underlying claim: once repose extinguishes the cause of action, the right to seek indemnification usually goes with it. Insurance policies may exclude time-barred claims, so a business assuming coverage exists for a late-filed claim should check the policy language before relying on it.