40-Year Recertification and Milestone Inspections

The two things people confuse

There are separate requirements with similar names, and buildings are frequently subject to both.

• Building recertification — the county-level requirement, best known as the 40-year recertification in Miami-Dade and Broward. Structures reaching the trigger age must be inspected for structural and electrical safety and recertified, then re-inspected on a recurring cycle. Notices come from the local building official with a fixed response window.
• Milestone inspections — the statewide requirement enacted for condominium and cooperative buildings after Surfside, under Florida Statute 553.899. It applies to qualifying multi-storey residential buildings at a defined age, earlier for buildings near the coast, and repeats on a cycle.
• Structural Integrity Reserve Study (SIRS) — a separate obligation on qualifying condominium associations to have the structural components studied and reserves funded accordingly.

The thresholds, ages and deadlines are set by statute and by local ordinance and they have been amended more than once since 2022. We confirm what actually applies to your building before anyone commissions anything.

What the inspection involves

1. Phase 1 — visual inspection. A licensed engineer or architect examines the structure for signs of substantial structural deterioration. Where none is found, the Phase 1 report is submitted and the obligation is met for that cycle.
2. Phase 2 — where deterioration is found. A more invasive examination, which can include testing, exposure of concealed elements, and detailed evaluation of the affected components.
3. The report. Prepared, sealed and submitted to the local building official and, for milestone inspections, provided to the association and unit owners as required.
4. Repair design. Where the report identifies required repairs, someone has to engineer them. That is us.
5. Repair permitting and inspection. The permits for that repair work, filed and driven to close-out — and where it helps the schedule, inspected by us as a private provider.

That last part is why associations and property managers bring the whole thing to one firm. The inspection identifying the problem, the engineering that designs the fix, the permit for the repair and the inspection that closes it are otherwise four separate vendors and four separate schedules.

Electrical recertification

Recertification is not only structural. The electrical portion covers service equipment, feeders, grounding, branch circuits, emergency and exit lighting, fire alarm interface and conditions in common areas. Older buildings frequently pass structurally and fail on electrical, and the corrective work carries its own permit.

If you have already received a notice

Deadlines on these notices are real and extensions are not automatic. If a notice is sitting on your desk, the useful first step is establishing exactly what the building is subject to, what the response window is, and what has to be submitted — before the clock runs down and the fine schedule engages.

Send us the notice and the property address. We will tell you what it actually requires.