WDO Reports in Polk County: the Adopted Form and What the Inspection Standard Excludes

One adopted form, and nothing added to it

Florida Administrative Code rule 5E-14.142 governs what a licensee has to do when they inspect for wood-destroying organisms and report the findings in writing. The rule adopts a specific document by reference: the Wood-Destroying Organisms Inspection Report, FDACS-13645. A licensee with a certified operator in the termite or wood-destroying organism category, who makes and reports such findings in writing, provides them to the requesting party on that report.

The rule then adds a sentence that is easy to skim past and worth reading twice: the licensee shall not place any disclaimers or additional language on the report as adopted. The form is the form. If extra hedging language has been printed onto the findings section of a report handed to you at a Polk County closing, that is not a stylistic choice by the company — the rule speaks to it directly.

Any qualifying, explaining, or limiting that a company wants to do belongs in its contract or a separate letter, not written onto the adopted report.

The inspection standard, in the rule’s own three parts

Rule 5E-14.142 also sets out what the inspection itself consists of. These three standards are the reason two honest inspectors can hand you reports that differ, and the reason a clean report is a narrower statement than most buyers assume.

Read together, those three standards explain something homeowners find frustrating: a box-filled garage, a packed closet, or blown insulation piled against the attic framing genuinely does reduce what an inspection can establish. Moving stored articles before the inspector arrives is the single cheapest thing a seller can do to make a report say more.

Wood-decaying fungi: the WDO nobody prepares for

“WDO” gets read as “termites” in ordinary conversation, and then a report comes back naming a fungus and the whole transaction pauses while everyone works out what it means. Fungal decay is squarely inside what the inspector is required to examine for, and in a county this wet it is not an exotic finding.

The four decay types the rule names describe how the fungus attacks the wood rather than what it looks like on the surface. Brown rot breaks down the cellulose and leaves behind a darkened, shrunken residue that cracks across and along the grain — the cubical fracture pattern that gives cubical rot its name. White rot attacks lignin as well, leaving wood paler, fibrous and stringy rather than crumbly. Poria is the one that surprises people: it can transport moisture along its own strands, which means it can keep decaying wood that is no longer sitting in a damp spot.

The practical distinction the rule draws matters in a negotiation. Surface mould on a joist — the black speckling on a bathroom ceiling, the bloom on a north-facing exterior board — is not a wood-destroying organism if it is not damaging sound wood, and it is not what this report exists to record. Decay is a structural finding. Mould on the surface is a moisture conversation. Conflating the two has cost Polk County sellers real concessions they did not owe.

What a licensee has to be carrying to write the report at all

Two requirements sit behind the inspector who shows up, and both are verifiable rather than promotional.

First, financial responsibility. Any licensee performing wood-destroying organism inspections must show proof, at the time of license application or renewal, of professional liability cover specifically covering wood-destroying organism inspection reports — or a bond, or a certified public accountant’s notarised statement of reviewed or audited net worth. The rule sets the thresholds and is explicit that no licensee may perform these inspections without meeting them. The point for a buyer is not the number but the fact: an inspector writing this report is required to be backed by something if the report is wrong.

Second, record retention. Pest control records are kept at the licensed business location for a minimum of two years, and records for preventive subterranean termite treatment of new construction for a minimum of three. On a newer Polk County home, that retention window is sometimes the only surviving evidence of what the builder had done before the slab was poured — and it is worth asking for by name rather than hoping the seller kept paperwork.

Reading your report without a translator

Common questions about Polk County WDO reports