A recertification notice means your building has reached the age at which your building department requires it to be inspected and certified as safe for continued occupancy, and the notice names the date your reports are due. It is not an accusation that something is wrong with the building, and it is not optional.
This page covers what happens between receiving the notice and closing the file. What your building specifically has to produce is set by the jurisdiction, and that varies more than most owners expect — the city pages linked at the bottom cover each one.
The notice is your building department telling you that your building has come due under a recertification requirement and that it expects signed and sealed engineering reports by a stated date.
Depending on where you are, the requirement behind it may be the county's or the city's own. Either way the notice comes from the building department with jurisdiction over your property, and that department is the one that reviews what you submit and issues the approval.
Read it for three things: the date, what reports are named, and who the department says may sign them. Those three determine everything that follows.
The notice is addressed to the owner of record. For a condominium, that means the association is responsible for the building itself and its common elements, and the board is the body that has to act on it.
In practice the property manager usually handles the correspondence and the board makes the engagement decision. If your building has a manager, forward the notice to them the day it arrives. If there's any question about who holds the obligation — a mixed-use property, a building with more than one association, a commercial condominium — that's a question for the association's attorney, not for the engineer.
Almost everywhere in South Florida the answer is two reports: a structural report and an electrical report, prepared separately, each signed and sealed by a professional the jurisdiction accepts for that scope.
Beyond that, the specifics diverge. Some jurisdictions require their own report forms and reject anything prepared in a firm's own format. Some require an infrared thermographic scan of the electrical distribution equipment where the building's service is 400 amperes or more in aggregate; others require nothing of the kind. Some name a particular qualification for the engineer signing each report. Some ask for additional certifications that have nothing to do with the building — parking lot illumination and guardrails, for instance.
None of that is negotiable at the counter, and none of it can be inferred from what a neighbouring city required. Check your own jurisdiction.
Confirm the deadline with the building department rather than working from an assumption, and find out what your building has to produce before you ask anyone for a proposal.
Then gather what the inspection will need:
Access is usually what sets the schedule. The inspection depends on getting into locked spaces, and identifying early who holds the keys will save more time than anything else on this list.
Five questions, in order of how often they turn out to matter:
Which forms will you use? If your jurisdiction mandates its own report forms, a report on anything else is returned regardless of how thorough it is. This is the single most common reason a submittal comes back.
Who signs each report, and are they qualified for it in this jurisdiction?Several jurisdictions name a specific qualification for the structural report, the electrical report, or both. A report signed by someone the department doesn't accept for that scope doesn't become acceptable by being good.
Does my building need a thermographic scan, and is it in your scope? The scan is performed on energized equipment under load and requires a Florida-licensed electrical contractor to remove panel covers and assist on site. It has to be planned, not added at the end.
Is anything else in scope besides the building? Some programs reach elevated decks, balconies, parking garages, docks and seawalls. A proposal scoped around the tower alone can leave you commissioning a second inspection late.
Who submits it, and what happens if the department comes back with comments?Establish whether you're buying a report or a submittal that gets to approval.
A proposal you can compare against another one names the reports it produces, the forms they'll be prepared on, who signs each, whether a thermographic scan is included, what parts of the property are within scope, and who deals with the building department after submittal.
If two proposals differ substantially, it is usually because they are not scoped the same way. Read what each one includes before reading anything else about them.
If the inspection identifies deterioration, the repair work almost always needs a permit from the building department. The engineer cannot submit a final report certifying the building on the strength of work that was never permitted.
This catches owners out because it arrives at the worst moment. The report is written, the deadline is close, and someone knows a contractor who can take care of it over a weekend. Work done that way does not close the file. It leaves the building carrying a repair that cannot be certified, and it frequently has to be opened up for inspection or done again properly — later, under more time pressure, at a point when the department is already waiting.
Getting the repair permitted is the building owner's responsibility, not the engineer's. The engineer identifies what needs doing and reports on the condition once it is done; the permit is between the association or owner and the department. Build that step into the schedule as soon as a deficiency is identified rather than treating it as paperwork to sort out afterwards.
Contact the building department. Enforcement is the building official's, the options available vary by jurisdiction, and the department is the only reliable source on where your building currently stands.
An engineer can tell you what your reports need to contain. Only the department can tell you what happens next on a building that is past its date, and that conversation goes better started by you than by them.
Requirements are set locally, and the differences are substantial rather than cosmetic.
Palm Beach County operates no county-wide recertification program. Boca Raton, Boynton Beach and Highland Beach each run their own, and they differ from one another. A building elsewhere in the county is subject to the statewide milestone inspection, which is structural only.
Broward County runs one Building Safety Inspection Program county-wide, administered through each municipal building department — including Pompano Beach and Deerfield Beach.
Miami-Dade County sets its requirement county-wide and each municipality administers it, including Miami Beach and the City of Miami.
If you hold buildings in more than one county, they are running two different processes, not one process twice.
Send us the notice and we can tell you what your submittal needs to contain.
Send us your notice →No. The milestone inspection is a statewide structural requirement. Municipal and county recertification programs are separate, and they cover the electrical system as well as the structure. A building may be subject to both, and whether work done for one applies to the other depends on scope.
Yes. Vilano Engineering delivers both, along with the thermographic scan where a jurisdiction requires it, and submits them as a single sealed package.
The scope is set by the jurisdiction. Most programs are built on a visual examination of the primary structural systems and the electrical service, distribution and common-area systems. Several also reach elevated decks, balconies, parking garages, docks and seawalls. Your city page has the detail.
Generally no. Recertification electrical scope is usually directed at the systems outside the dwelling units rather than the panelboards inside them, though this varies. Access to electrical and meter rooms is the part that matters.
The report identifies the deterioration and the repairs it calls for. Finding something is a normal outcome of an inspection, not a failure of one. What follows is the part boards most often underestimate. Most repairs of any substance require a permit from the building department, and the engineer cannot submit a final report certifying the building for work that was never permitted. Repairs done quietly by a handyman, or by a contractor who skipped the permit, do not close the file — they leave the building with work that cannot be certified and often has to be opened up, inspected, or redone. Ensuring the repair work is properly permitted is the building owner's responsibility. The engineer identifies what needs doing and reports on the result; the permit is between the owner or association and the department.
Vilano Engineering, LLC is a licensed engineering firm providing building recertification and safety inspections, infrared thermography, electrical design, expert witness services, developer turnover, and property condition assessments.
Nicholas Strachan, PE
Licensed Professional Engineer — Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, New York, North Carolina, Texas
Certified Level II Thermographer
Licensed Plans Examiner — Florida
25+ years in engineering design, inspection, and quality assurance