Guide
A certified letter about the Building Safety Inspection Program means your building has reached inspection age in Broward. Here is what it asks of you.
- Engineer
- Juan Tercero, PE., M.Sc. · Florida PE 105256
Guide
What the letter is
Broward’s Building Safety Inspection Program is written for the whole county by the Broward County Board of Rules and Appeals, and each city’s Building Official runs it. Every year the Board gives each city the list of buildings that reach inspection age, and the city mails the notices by certified mail. The letter is that notice: it says your building is on this year’s list and has to be inspected, structurally and electrically, with a report filed with the city.
Many owners still call it the 40-year recertification, a name from an older version of the program. The ages and the time to file changed, and older articles online still describe the earlier rules. The rows below give the ages in force; the time to file is in the guide on what to do when a notice arrives, and on the BSIP page.
- Broward — First due: At 25 years, counted from the certificate of occupancy.
- Broward — Then: Every 10 years.
Who has to file
The obligation sits with the owner of the building. In a condominium or a cooperative that means the association, acting through its board; in a rental, commercial or mixed-use building, the owner of record. A property manager can run the process, but the filing is made for the owner.
Almost every type of building is in the program, in every Broward city and in the unincorporated area. The exceptions are narrow, and the row below lists them as the Board’s policy states them. Buildings owned by the federal government or the State of Florida, schools of the county school board, railroads and buildings on sovereign tribal lands are also outside it.
- Broward — Applies to: Almost all building types, in every Broward city and the unincorporated area. Outside the program: one- to four-family dwellings of three or fewer habitable stories, fee-simple townhouses, and minor structures under 3,500 sq ft of building area.
What has to be delivered
Broward asks for two inspections, a structural one and an electrical one, written up as a narrative report with the Board’s own structural and electrical forms and color photographs. A firm’s own forms are not accepted in place of the Board’s.
The Board’s current policy does not ask for parking-lot certificates or thermography as separate documents; guardrails and parking garages are inspected as part of the structure. Some cities add a cover sheet or a submittal form of their own, and the letter says so when they do.
- Send us the letter, with the date your building received it.
- We read what your city asks for and reply with a fixed-fee proposal for the complete BSIP package.
- The report is filed as soon as it is complete, even when it lists repairs; an amended report and a completion letter close the file after them.
Questions
Questions about the BSIP letter
Does a townhouse community have to file?
Fee-simple townhouses are outside the program, as the “Applies to” row says. Where townhouses are owned some other way, the answer depends on the building: send us the address and we check.
Our building was inspected under the old program. Does that count?
Yes. A building inspected under the earlier version is treated as compliant, and the next inspection follows the interval in the “Then” row. The city’s letter states the year.
Is a BSIP notice the same as the state milestone inspection?
For condominium and cooperative buildings of three habitable stories or more, the BSIP report also meets the state milestone inspection, both of its phases. The board’s duties to unit owners under state law still apply.
Who answers questions about the letter itself?
The office that sent it. For what the inspection and the report involve, send us the letter and we read it first.
Keep reading
Where to go from here.
Next step
A county notice in your hand, a building that worries you or a new project — describe it and attach what you have. A phone photo of the letter is enough. You hear back from the engineer, with questions or with a written proposal.
The proposal is free. We usually reply within two hours.