What a Termite Bond Is, and What It Covers

A termite bond is the trade’s name for an ongoing contract with a pest control company, and most of the things called bonds are warranties from the company itself rather than a financial instrument standing behind it. Which of the two you have is a fact your paperwork is required to state in some states.

There is no hurry on this one. Florida’s agriculture department tells homeowners it “is always to your advantage to take an extra couple of days or weeks to obtain additional estimates and find contract terms to your liking.”

By the end of this you will know which of the two things your paperwork describes, what a regulator requires it to spell out, what the annual renewal keeps alive, and what happens to it when the house changes hands.

What is a termite bond?

The word covers two different arrangements, and the gap between them is exactly what one state’s disclosure rule is aimed at.

In ordinary use it means a written agreement with a pest control company covering treatment, reinspection and a promise about what happens if termites come back. In the narrower sense a bond is a separate financial instrument guaranteeing the company’s performance, and the agreement in your hand may or may not have one behind it.

North Carolina requires the company to close that gap in writing. Under 02 NCAC 34 .0605(a)(14), “Any licensee or business entity advertising to be bonded shall advise each customer, in writing, in the proposal, whether or not the warranty or written agreement will be covered by a bond of any type”. Where one exists, subparagraph (15) says the agreement “shall set forth those performance guarantees in wording identical to that in the bond itself”. Florida’s rule 5E-14.105(2)(j) requires the same, “in wording identical to that in the bond itself.”

My read of those provisions together is that two regulators, independently, have seen contracts that summarized a bond into something the bond did not say, and have responded by banning the summary. The phrase “wording identical” appears in both states because paraphrase was the problem.

Florida’s legislature said the general version out loud: “The Legislature finds that the terms ‘guarantee’ and ‘warranty’ are common in contracts for the treatment of wood-destroying organisms. The purpose of this section is to assure that contract language describing a ‘guarantee’ or ‘warranty’ is clear and easily identifiable for the protection of consumers and licensees.”

What has to be written in the contract?

More than most people read, and the required items are the ones a dispute later turns on.

Florida requires the contract in your hands first: it “must be given to the property owner or his authorized agent for acceptance or rejection before any portion of the work is done and before payment, in part or in full, is received by the licensee.”

North Carolina’s list of what such an agreement must include runs to seventeen items. Four of them decide most arguments:

• What is covered. “The wood-destroying organism(s) to be controlled or prevented and the terms of the service agreement or warranty to be issued, if any”.
• Whether anyone comes back. “Whether or not reinspections are to be made and, if so, approximate time interval between, and renewal fees for same”.
• When they retreat. “Conditions under which retreatments will be made”.
• Whether it survives a sale. “Whether the written agreement or warranty may be transferred to subsequent owners of the property and the terms of any such transfer.”

Florida’s list adds the money, and requires three numbers rather than one: the maximum price for the treatment, “the exact annual renewal fees to be charged under the contract, if any”, and the maximum for structural repairs, “shown separately”.

Florida also makes species a first-page matter: any termite contract “must clearly state on the first page if the contract covers subterranean termites, dry wood termites, or both”, and where Formosan termites or other invasive species are excluded, “the species must be named as excluded”.

What does the company have to do when termites come back?

In Florida, two clocks start. Elsewhere, whatever the contract says.

Rule 5E-14.105(8)(a) requires a licensee to inspect a reported reinfestation “within thirty calendar days of written notification by the property owner or agent to which the contract applies”, and to retreat “within ninety days of discovery of an infestation subject to the re-treatment provision of a contract”, unless the owner blocks access, waives the treatment in writing, or the building is commercial or multiunit, where the window is 180 days.

The first clock starts on written notification. A phone call to a scheduler is not the thing the rule counts.

The rule also handles the contract running out mid-claim: “In the event a contract expires before a re-treatment can be accomplished, the licensee shall make a written offer to perform the re-treatment in accordance with the terms of the contract within ninety days at no additional cost.” Which coverage level any of that attaches to is the subject of my comparison of a repair bond and a retreat-only agreement.

What does the annual renewal buy?

It keeps the obligation alive, and in at least one state, dropping a single year ends it permanently.

The University of Kentucky’s extension entomology service describes the ordinary arrangement: warranties “usually stipulate that the company will return and retreat the affected area(s) at no additional charge provided the annual renewal is maintained”, and adds a judgement of its own, “It is a bit of a gamble to purchase any termite treatment without an ongoing service agreement.”

North Carolina writes the failure case into its new-construction rule: “Failure of the homeowner to renew any one year relieves the PCO of any future responsibility for renewal”. A lapse is not a pause.

What the money buys varies, and the contract has to say. Florida requires it to specify “whether and when an annual inspection will be performed”, and FDACS notes something buyers rarely expect: “Some warranties require the contract holder to request the inspection.” An inspection you have to remember to ask for is a different product from one that happens.

North Carolina also requires a signed report after every reinspection or retreatment “showing the condition of the property with respect to the presence or absence of wood-destroying organisms.” Those reports are what a future buyer’s inspector will want to see, so they are worth keeping in one place.

Why would a company refuse to write one?

Because some houses cannot be treated to the standard the promise assumes, and the honest answer is to say so before taking the money.

The University of Kentucky’s guidance lists the usual reasons: “In some cases, no warranty will be offered if wells, drainage systems, sub-slab heat ducts, or inaccessible crawl spaces make it impossible to treat in accordance with industry standards.” It also notes that “Most reputable pest control firms will not warrant spot treatments, since it is likely that termites will eventually find other points of entry into the building.”

FDACS describes the same territory as a contract category: “No warranty-no Guarantee treatments are issued for spot treatments and situations where construction defects prevent the pest control company from being able to establish proper barriers or bait/monitoring systems.” Florida’s rule forces that into writing beforehand: where no responsibility is assumed for retreating a spot-treated area, the licensee “shall furnish the property holder or his authorized agent with a signed statement to this effect, prior to treatment.”

The physical background is unglamorous. Liquid termiticides “are supposed to control termites for at least five years when applied according to label directions”, and yet “Even the best treatments performed by knowledgeable pest control firms may fail at times, when termites find their way through untreated gaps in the soil.” A refusal to warrant a spot treatment is that finding turned into a business decision.

What happens to it when the house is sold?

Transfer belongs to the treatment contract rather than to any inspection report, and the states that regulate it do so in different ways.

Georgia builds the answer into its mandatory inspection report. The prescribed form makes the company tick one of three boxes: “Transferable to any subsequent owner of the property upon payment of a fee on or before the expiration date”, “Not transferable to any subsequent owner of the property”, or “The above structure(s) are not covered by a treatment contract with this company”. A buyer in Georgia gets that answer in the transaction paperwork rather than by asking. Mississippi legislates a floor instead, requiring a termite contract to “guarantee the performance of the work to the original owner and subsequent owners for at least one year after initial date of contract to the original owner”.

Switching companies leaves a signature behind. North Carolina forbids stacking: a structure already under a written agreement “shall not knowingly be placed under an additional written agreement or warranty for the same treatment” without a separate signed acknowledgement. In Florida, FDACS says “you will be required to sign a state mandated consent form if you are going to ‘change’ to a new company while you still have active coverage.”

An existing contract also changes what an inspection report says. Page 2 of Form NPMA-33 softens a treatment recommendation where old evidence and a documented past treatment coexist, “unless the structure is under warranty or covered by a service agreement with a licensed pest control company”. A live bond travels with the house, so it belongs in the pile you hand a buyer, and the report it gets attached to is covered in my guide to what a WDI report means.

Here’s what I’d actually do

I would read the first page and the last page, and skip the middle on the first pass.

The first page is where Florida puts the coverage declaration and the species, and where North Carolina’s disclosure about a bond has to appear in the proposal. The last page is where the signature is, and next to it the renewal terms. Between them sit the two questions that decide what the money buys: does anybody come back without being asked, and what happens if I miss a year.

If the company advertises that it is bonded, I would ask for the sentence in writing that says whether my agreement is covered by one. North Carolina thought that gap was worth a rule, and the gap exists everywhere. If there is a bond, the agreement should quote it rather than describe it.

If I were offered a seller’s existing contract during a purchase, I would ask for the transfer terms and the last two reinspection reports in the same email. A contract with no reports behind it is a subscription rather than a service.

I have not read your contract and the rules quoted above belong to particular states, so check yours against your own regulator before you rely on any of it.

Sources

• Rules of the North Carolina Structural Pest Control Committee, 02 NCAC 34 .0605 — North Carolina Office of Administrative Hearings, rule effective 2018-11-22. Accessed 2026-08-06.
• Chapter 5E-14, Entomology – Pest Control Regulations, rule 5E-14.105 — Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, effective July 2018. Accessed 2026-08-06.
• Fla. Stat. § 482.227, Guarantees and warranties — The Florida Legislature, last amended 2020. Accessed 2026-08-06.
• Conducive Conditions and Contracts for Wood Destroying Organisms (FDACS-P-02044) — Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, revised June 2020. Accessed 2026-08-06.
• Termite Control: Answers for Homeowners (ENTFACT-604) — University of Kentucky Department of Entomology, revised March 2026. Accessed 2026-08-06.
• Rules of the Georgia Structural Pest Control Commission, Rule 620-6-.03 — Georgia Department of Agriculture, effective 2026-04-08. Accessed 2026-08-06.
• 2 Miss. Admin. Code Pt. 1, Subpt. 3, Ch. 11, Subch. 01, R. 115 — Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce, Bureau of Plant Industry. Accessed 2026-08-04.
• Form NPMA-33: Wood Destroying Insect Inspection Report — National Pest Management Association, hosted by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, form dated 2019-07-01. Accessed 2026-08-06.
• A Home Buyer’s Guide for Wood Destroying Insect Information Report (WDIR) — North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, Structural Pest Control Division, undated. Accessed 2026-08-06.