JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Florida State Senator Jennifer Bradley has proposed a bill that could require homeowners to tell prospective buyers how many times their home flooded.
In the Davis Shores neighborhood of St. Augustine, homeowner Keith Brantly says he wishes it was a thing when he was buying his home. After buying his home in 2011, Brantly spent $80,000 to renovate it, only to tear it down a few years later after Hurricane Matthew flooded his home.
Brantly spent $400,000 to raise his home. When Brantly bought it, he wasn’t sure if it previously flooded. If he knew, Brantly says he would have raised his home, instead of renovating it.
The new bill could have saved him thousands of dollars.
But, Brantly sees one problem. He is only able to document his home’s flood history since he moved in. He thinks a county or city database would help keep accountability as homes change ownership.
“The tax assessor has all this information about the house, they have when the house was torn down and rebuilt," Brantly said. "It would be to me, fairly easy to be able to tack on information about that and keep a running tab on all that information."
First Coast News reached out to Bradley after business hours and is waiting for a response on when her bill will be assigned to committees.
The state legislative session begins in January.