Referral History – Referred at the June 22, 2022 Commission meeting by Commissioner Fernandez, item C4Z.

The Florida legislature's recently adopted Senate Bill 4-D, an act relating to building safety and Condominium reform measures, creating s. 553.899, F.S requiring condominium associations and cooperative associations to have milestone inspections performed on certain buildings at specified times. 

This new state law which went into effect on May 26, 2022 creating requirements for “milestone inspections”, emulates Miami-Dade County’s building recertification program that has been enforced in all Miami-Dade municipalities since 1975 for buildings 40 years old and every 10 years thereafter. Being that Miami Beach has been enforcing the County’s building recertification program, the reform needed by the City of Miami Beach is minimal. The state law which makes milestone inspections a requirement for condominiums and cooperatives across the state of Florida is more impactful to municipalities outside Miami-Dade County and Broward County who did not previously have a recertification program. There is some pre-empting State law, that accordingly the County has amended County ordinance section 8-11 to integrate the new laws, including lowering the building age at which the first recertification is to occur from 40 years to 30 years from occupancy start with a 10 year recurrence/25 years for coastal condominiums and cooperative association buildings. The County law is stricter in that ALL buildings, except single-family residences, duplexes, and minor structures as defined above, are required to undergo recertification.
The following is a summary of those changes:
1. All buildings built on or before 1982 that have already had an initial recertification inspection through Miami-Dade’s 40-Year program will continue to follow the established schedule.
2. Coastal condominium and cooperative buildings three stories or taller built between 1983 and 1997 and located within three miles of the coastline must have a recertification inspection by December 31, 2024, and every 10 years thereafter. All other buildings built between 1983 and 1992 must have a recertification inspection by December 31, 2024, and every 10 years thereafter.
3. All condominium and cooperative association buildings that are three stories or taller located within three miles of the coastline built on or after 1998 must have a building recertification inspection when the building age reaches 25 years, and every 10 years thereafter. All other buildings built on or after 1993 must have a recertification inspection when the building age reaches 30 years, and every 10 years thereafter.

More Information

• Notice of Required Inspection relating to the required recertification is mailed to the building owner and posted to the building in January of every year. The owner of a building or structure subject to recertification shall furnish, or cause to be furnished, within ninety (90) days of Notice of Required Inspection, a written report to the Building Official certifying that each such building or structure is structurally and electrically safe, or has been made structurally and electrically safe for the specified use for continued occupancy.

• Notice of the NEW requirement for buildings that are between the ages of 25 – 30 years and are required to come into compliance and submit reports by December 31, 2024 were posted the week of August 15, 2022.

• Advance Courtesy Noticing of Required Recertifications
o The City began providing advance courtesy noticing of required recertifications in December 2021.
o Advance courtesy noticing will begin two-years before the required recertification cycle, followed by another notice one-year prior to the final 90-day notice of required recertification.
o Early noticing helps property owners and building managers in planning for the hiring of an engineer or architect and budgeting for any repairs required to maintain compliance with the applicable codes.

• The County’s approved General Considerations & Guidelines which represents a concise guidance document for performing and reporting a building’s conditions for continued safe occupancy, Structural Report Template, and Electrical Report Template have all been updated to include building components and details of the structure.


• Recertification Upload Portal
o The City has made available on the CSS portal the ability to upload submittal of the recertification reports.
o On this portal you may upload, the Structural and Electrical reports, and any other document necessary for building recertification.
o Submitters must have a CSS login, and request to have their CSS contact added to the recertification case in order to upload online.
o Recertification fees may be paid online through the portal.
o Recertification reports may be submitted electronically using digital signature.
o By creating a single PDF file for each report, the corresponding design professional should apply their digital signature to the file for validation.

Additional information from the County, and another from the International Code Council on the new State law and County changes are attached.

For more information on the City’s specific processes for recertification you may visit https://www.miamibeachfl.gov/city-hall/building/building-recert/ or email BuildingRecertification@MiamiBeachfl.gov.

The Building Department is hosting informative sessions for building managers and condominium association members on the new requirements for building recertification.  The last meeting was held on September 14, 2022.  Future meeting dates are to be determined.

The impact to the City on these changes is an increase of recertification packages to create and review submission of reports from 2,447 Buildings that are 40 years and older that meet the criteria of buildings needing to undergo recertification, to an additional 71 buildings between the ages of 25-39 that would now also fall under the requirement of recertification. During 2024, the catch up year, all condominium and cooperatives 3 stories and up (25-40 years old), all other multifamily and commercial buildings (30-40 years old), and the buildings which would normally be due this year (50 year, 60 year, 70 year, 80 year…etc.) will be due and the increase in the workload will be the postings, review of submittals and enforcement on properties that are not compliant.

For clarification, it is important to understand that the inspections required as part of the milestone inspections/recertification are not conducted by the City, but rather conducted by a Florida licensed architect or engineer hired by the owner or association of the building. The City’s Building department inspectors do conduct quality assurance compliance inspections as part of the recertification report review for Threshold buildings - 4 stories and greater.