Nassau County, FL Property Maintenance: Vacant Lot Maintenance (2026)

Nassau County Code § 18¼-5 lists the specific conditions the county has declared prohibited because they affect public health, and item (7) covers overgrown and dead vegetation directly: an accumulation of dead or dying grass, plants, shrubs, trees, tree limbs or branches or similar vegetation. That sits in the same list as unburied animal carcasses (item 1), accumulations of litter (item 2), material that breeds flies, mosquitoes or vermin (item 3), stagnant water (item 4), non-airtight privy vaults and garbage cans (item 5), and pollution of a well, stream or waterbody (item 6).

The chapter's definitions in § 18¼-1 make 'property' mean any real property, public or private, within the county, so an unimproved or vacant lot is covered exactly the same as a developed one; there's no carve-out for land that has no structure on it. For the litter-accumulation item specifically, the code states that the existence of litter on a property is prima facie evidence that the owner or occupant put it there or caused it to be there, shifting the practical burden onto whoever holds the property once county code enforcement documents the condition. chapters 125 and 162 rather than a separate weed-abatement statute.