Contract assumption

Definition

Florida can deny a future license to any owner of a business that skipped refunds or contract transfers.

Why It Matters

Florida writes a rule no other trade in this campaign has. The department may refuse to issue or renew a pest control license to anyone who was an owner, director, officer or general partner of a pest control business that was sold or went out of business in the previous five years. The bar applies where that business failed to reimburse the prorated value of its customers' remaining contract periods, or failed to arrange for another licensed operator to assume them. A seller who walks away from a paid-ahead book can therefore cost a future licensee their own license, and the same five-year bar runs separately against the permit to perform preventive termite treatments, which is the better-margin permission of the two. The business license does not travel either, since a transfer of ownership requires a fresh application and a license expires automatically when the business changes its location or its registered name.