Miami-Dade Recertification
El Portal’s Building Department posts its own recertification guidelines and accepts applicants’ submissions by appointment or through its electronic portal, and no other way. One team delivers your El Portal building’s complete recertification.
- Engineer
- Juan Tercero, PE., M.Sc. · Florida PE 105256
Your city
How building recertification is handled in El Portal
In El Portal the recertification goes through the Village of El Portal Building Department, which shares a page with the Village’s code enforcement. Among its forms the Village posts a guidelines document printed on its own Building & Zoning Department letterhead, with the outline for the structural and electrical reports. What follows keeps to that document and to the department’s page.
- The Village’s guidelines
- The Village’s list of Code Enforcement and Building Department forms includes a file titled “40-Year Certification Guidelines”, after the program’s former name. It sets out minimum procedural guidelines for a building’s structural and electrical recertification, on Village letterhead that carries Village Hall’s address.
- What the report covers
- The structural outline asks for a description of the building, its folio number and occupancy classification, then works through the foundation, masonry walls, floor and roof systems, steel and concrete framing, windows and wood framing. A closing item leaves room for anything else the architect or engineer requires.
- The electrical part
- The electrical section asks about the service and its amperage, the meter and electric rooms, branch circuits and conduit raceways, and whether emergency lighting, exit lighting and the fire alarm are in good working order. Both the structural and the electrical part state whether repairs are required and describe them.
- The notice date
- Each part of the Village’s outline asks for the date of the notice of required inspection, beside the dates the inspection actually took place. So the notice the building received is a document the report itself refers to — keep it with its envelope.
- How filings are made
- The Building Department’s page accepts applicants’ submissions either as a hard copy dropped off at its office by appointment, or through electronic plan review on its web portal, and in no other form. It asks that plans and documents not be e-mailed, which it says slows the review; portal users get status updates automatically.
- Which forms it takes
- The Village’s outline asks for a statement that the building is structurally safe, unsafe, safe with qualifications, or deemed safe by restrictive interpretation. The page does not say whether the Village takes this outline or the county’s current report forms, so we settle that with the Building Department before anything is filed.
Building office Village of El Portal Building Department 500 NE 87th Street El Portal, FL 33138 Phone: (305) 795-7880
Read on the website of the Village of El Portal Building Department:
When it applies
The deadlines that apply in El Portal
The schedule is Miami-Dade County’s, printed here for a building in El Portal; the date on your own notice is the one that counts.
- First due in El Portal: At 30 years — 25 for condominium and cooperative buildings of three or more stories within 3 miles of the coast.
- Then in El Portal: Every 10 years, for the life of the structure.
- Time to file in El Portal: 90 days from the Notice of Required Inspection.
- If repairs are needed in El Portal: 150 days from the Notice to finish repairs that need no permit and to obtain permits for the rest.
- Condominiums & co-ops in El Portal: The recertification serves as compliance with the state milestone inspection — no separate milestone report is filed.
Miami-Dade County’s rows, for El Portal. Source: Code of Miami-Dade County, Section 8-11(f) · Last verified:
Questions & answers
Questions boards in El Portal ask
Who handles building recertification in El Portal?
The Village of El Portal Building Department, which is reached through Village Hall. It shares a page with the Village’s code enforcement, and its Building Official and inspectors are listed there. Send us whatever notice the building received and we read what the Village is asking for.
Does El Portal have its own recertification guidelines?
Yes. It posts its own guidelines, on Village letterhead, with an outline for the structural and the electrical report. The Village’s page does not say whether that outline or the county’s current report forms are to be used, so we settle it with the Building Department; the complete package we deliver goes on whichever the Village expects.
How do we hand documents to the El Portal Building Department?
By appointment, as a hard copy dropped off at the department’s office, or through its electronic plan review portal — the page calls those the only acceptable options and warns that e-mailed plans or documents delay the review. It speaks of applicants in general, so we confirm with the department that a recertification report travels the same way.
How long do we have to recertify a building in El Portal?
The time is Miami-Dade County’s, in the rows above under “Time to file” and “If repairs are needed”. The Village’s guidelines print no number of days; what they ask for is the date of the notice of required inspection, which is one more reason to hold on to that notice.
Is El Portal’s recertification the same as the 40-year certification?
Yes. The Village’s guidelines still carry the title “40-Year Certification”, the program’s former name. The program is Miami-Dade County’s building recertification, and the ages that now apply to an El Portal building are the county’s, in the rows above.
One team
The complete recertification for a building in El Portal
Next step
Send the notice your El Portal building received — a picture taken with a phone will do — or its address and the year it was built. We check what the Village of El Portal Building Department expects and reply with a proposal for the complete recertification.
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.