Existing buildings
From the Notice of Required Inspection to the completion letter that closes the file — inspection, the structural report on the program’s official form, repair scope, reinspection.
- Applies to
- Existing buildings
- Coverage
- Broward County, Florida
When you need it
A certified letter with a deadline.
Broward’s Building Safety Inspection Program (BSIP) is a countywide safety inspection of older buildings, structural and electrical, written by the Broward County Board of Rules and Appeals and enforced by your city’s Building Official. Many owners still call it the 40-year recertification, and much of what is written about it describes rules that have since changed. Boards and owners need someone working from the current policy who can carry the structural side from the first site visit to the close-out.
- 01A Notice of Required Inspection has arrived from your city’s Building Official — or the building is nearing the age at which one will.
- 02A previous report listed repairs and the file is still open.
- 03You are buying or managing a Broward building and want to know where it stands in the inspection cycle.
Condominium, cooperative and homeowner associations · Property managers · Owners of rental, commercial and mixed-use buildings
Scope & deliverables
What's included
- Review of the notice, the building’s records and prior reports
- Structural inspection on site — frame, slabs, balconies, stairs, guardrails, roof and foundations, and the parking garage where there is one
- Classification of observed conditions by structural significance
- Repair scope defined so contractors bid the same work
- Reinspection of the repaired areas
- Answers to the Building Official’s questions on the structural report
What you receive
- Structural report on the program’s official form, with a written narrative and color photographs, signed and sealed
- Written repair scope where repairs are needed
- Signed and sealed letter on whether the building can remain occupied during repairs
- Amended report and completion letter after repairs
Next step
Send the notice — a phone photo is enough — or the address and the year of the certificate of occupancy. We read what your city is asking for and reply with a proposal for the inspection and the structural report.
When it applies
Broward County
- 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.
- First due
- At 25 years, counted from the certificate of occupancy.
- Then
- Every 10 years.
- Time to file
- 180 days from receiving the Notice of Required Inspection. Older guides still say 90 days; the policy in force since August 9, 2024 gives 180. Your city’s letter states its own date.
- If repairs are needed
- 180 days from the date of the report, under permit, unless the Building Official sets a different time. A reinspection, an amended report and a signed and sealed completion letter close the file.
- Condominiums & co-ops
- The BSIP report serves as phase one and phase two of the state milestone inspection.
Broward County Board of Rules and Appeals, Policy #05-05 · Florida Building Code, Broward County Amendments, Section 110.15
For condominium and cooperative buildings of three habitable stories or more, the BSIP report serves as phase one and phase two of the state milestone inspection, and the board’s duties to unit owners under state law (Florida Statute 553.899) remain: within 14 days of receiving the notice, tell them about the required inspection and the date it must be completed; within 45 days of receiving the report, send every owner the engineer’s summary, post it in a conspicuous place on the property, and publish the report and the summary on the association’s website where the association is required to have one. Your city’s Building Official enforces the program, and your city’s letter states its own date — which is why we read it first.
Last verified: October 4, 2026
Building in Miami-Dade?See Miami-Dade Recertification→
How the work runs
Notice review
We read your city’s letter first: the date it was received, the date it sets, and what the Building Official asks to be filed.
Inspection
A systematic visual examination of the structure on site, with testing or opened finishes only where what we see calls for it.
Report filed
A written narrative report with color photographs, plus the official structural form of the Board of Rules and Appeals, signed and sealed. It is filed as soon as it is complete, even when it lists repairs.
Repairs under permit
Where repairs are needed, we define the work so contractors bid the same scope, and issue the signed and sealed letter on whether the building can stay occupied meanwhile. Repairs wait for their permits.
Reinspection
When the work is complete, the areas noted in the original report are reinspected.
Close-out
An amended report and a signed and sealed completion letter go to the owner and to the Building Official. That closes the file, until the next cycle.
Good to know
What changes the scope — and what no engineer can promise.
- The Board of Rules and Appeals sends each city its list of buildings by June, and the Building Official mails the notices by certified mail from June through August. Not receiving one is no defense: the inspection, the report and any repairs are still due on time.
- The Building Official may grant an extension of up to 60 days to submit the report.
- Broward’s program asks for a structural report and an electrical report. We prepare the structural report; the electrical report is signed by a professional qualified in electrical design.
- Buildings over three stories or 50 feet are “threshold buildings”, and their structural report must come from an engineer with the additional qualifications Broward County requires. We confirm this for your building before we propose.
- Only the Board of Rules and Appeals’ own structural and electrical forms are accepted — a firm’s own form is not — and they come in addition to a written narrative report with color photographs, not instead of it.
- The building is judged against the code in force when it was built. The program does not require bringing it up to today’s code.
- While repairs are underway, the engineer issues a signed and sealed letter on whether the building can remain occupied.
- The amended report and the completion letter come from the professional who inspected the building and issued the original report. If another firm issued yours, say so when you write — we confirm what closing the file will take before we propose.
- Also outside the program: federal and State of Florida buildings, buildings on sovereign tribal lands, Broward County School Board schools, and railroads. Parking garages, guardrails, and the balconies, elevated decks, docks and seawalls attached to or supporting a structure are part of the inspection.
- A condition that puts life or property in danger is reported to the owner and to the Building Official; the engineer has a duty to do so.
- Each city handles filing its own way. We read your city’s letter first, and work to the date it states.
- A report documents observed conditions; concealed ones may need further investigation, and no engineer can guarantee how a reviewing office will act on it.
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.