Did Florida Pass an ADU Law? What Actually Applies in Marion, Sumter, and Lake County (2026)

I get some version of this question every couple of weeks now: "I heard Florida passed a law that says I can build an ADU in my backyard. Is that true?" Usually the person read it on a builder's blog or a real estate page that was written while the bill was still moving and never got updated.

That's not a bad outcome for everyone. Unincorporated Marion County was already permissive. But if you're inside the City of Ocala, or on a small lot in Sumter, the failed bill matters because it would have changed your answer. Here's the whole picture.

What SB 48 would have done, and why it died

The 2026 bill was a housing package, and the ADU section was the part homeowners cared about. It would have amended Florida Statute 163.31771 to require every county and city to adopt an ordinance by December 1, 2026 allowing ADUs in any area zoned for single-family use. Approval would have been by right: no public hearing, no variance, no conditional use permit, no special exception. If your site plan met the zoning standards, you got your permit.

It also would have stopped local governments from requiring replacement parking when a garage or carport is converted into a unit, which is the single rule that kills more garage conversions than any other.

So why did a bill that cleared the Senate without a single no vote fail? Short-term rentals. The Senate wanted cities to be able to bar ADUs from being used as vacation rentals. The House wouldn't agree to that, and rather than hold up the rest of the housing package over it, the ADU language was dropped. The bill then sat in House messages until session ended.

Reporting from the session suggests the ADU mandate will be back in 2027. If it passes in that form, this article will be out of date and I'll update it. Until then, the statute that governs is the old one, and it leaves everything to your local government.

Who actually decides whether you can build one

Since state law is permissive rather than mandatory, three layers of rules apply to your property, and any one of them can say no.

1. Your county's land development code if you're in an unincorporated area, which is most of the addresses we work on. A lot of homes with an Ocala mailing address are actually unincorporated Marion County. Same for Summerfield, Belleview, and most of the Sumter County side of The Villages.
2. Your city's code if you're inside city limits. Ocala, Wildwood, Leesburg, Lady Lake, and Dunnellon each review their own addresses and each has its own ADU rule, or none.
3. Your HOA or deed restrictions. Florida courts have consistently upheld properly recorded private restrictions, and no ADU ordinance overrides them. In The Villages, the district declarations and the Architectural Review Committee are usually stricter than Sumter County, and many declarations allow one home per lot, full stop.

The first thing we do on any ADU inquiry is pull the parcel and confirm which jurisdiction it falls under. That five-minute check decides whether the project is straightforward, complicated, or not possible as a detached unit. Everything below assumes you've done that check or we've done it for you.

What applies today in Marion, Sumter, and Lake County

These are the rules as they stand in 2026, with the code sections so you can read them yourself. Our ADU construction page has the longer version of each, plus costs and timelines.

So, can you build one? A short decision guide

If you don't know which bucket you're in, send us the address through our free virtual estimate form and we'll tell you before either of us spends any money on drawings.

What makes it an ADU instead of a bonus room

This is where a lot of DIY plans go sideways. A structure is an accessory dwelling unit when it is a complete, independent home: its own kitchen, its own bathroom, its own sleeping area, on the same lot as the primary house and clearly secondary to it. Take the kitchen out and the county looks at the same space as a guest room, a studio, or a pool house, each of which sits under a different set of rules and, in the City of Ocala, is often the only version that's allowed.

The kitchen also drives the permit scope. Once you're adding a cooking appliance, a sink, and the circuits and drain lines behind them, you're into plumbing and electrical permits and, on a detached unit with septic, a drainfield evaluation. That's part of why a detached ADU costs what it does.

Garage conversions: the version that survives most rulebooks

If a detached unit isn't available at your address, a garage conversion often is, because it's an existing enclosed structure attached to the house. The catch under current law is parking. SB 48 would have banned replacement-parking requirements for converted garages statewide. Since it didn't pass, whether you need to add a parking pad when you convert the garage is up to your jurisdiction, and it's one of the first things we confirm.

We've written up the full scope on our garage conversion page: slab insulation, raising the floor, HVAC, egress windows, and the front elevation work that keeps it from looking like a garage with the door bricked in.

What an ADU costs in our market

These are the planning ranges we publish on the ADU page, current for 2026 in Marion, Sumter, and Lake County. They're ranges for scoping a project, not quotes.

Add $10,000 to $30,000 or more if the unit needs its own septic tank and drainfield, which is common on larger unincorporated lots. Lake County impact fees are on top of that and get set during review.

Most of our ADU clients aren't paying cash. A detached unit is usually financed as new construction, which we cover on the construction loans page. Conversions and attached suites more often run through a renovation loan or home equity, covered under financing options. Veterans should look at VA loan options first.

What we do differently on an ADU job

Because the answer changes by parcel, we don't quote an ADU off a phone call. We pull the property record, confirm the jurisdiction, read the applicable section of code, check the HOA if there is one, and then tell you which type of unit you can actually build. If the answer is "not a detached unit, but an attached suite works," we'd rather say that on day one than after you've paid for a survey.

Florida Legacy Construction is a state Certified Building Contractor, license CBC1268994, which covers the structural, plumbing, electrical, and mechanical work an ADU needs under one license. We pull the permit, schedule the inspections, and hand you a unit with a certificate of occupancy. Our process page walks through the steps.