The Inspection Report Is Not the Most Important Document in a South Florida Purchase. These Five Are.

A Florida insurer cannot refuse a policy on a roof less than 15 years old because of the roof's age alone. That is one of five documents that matter more than the inspection report itself.

I have spent 17 years in this market. The inspection has changed from a formality into the part of the deal I prepare for hardest. The report is not the problem. The report tells you what a licensed person saw on one morning. It does not tell you how old anything is. It does not tell you what current standard costs. And it does not tell you what the building already knows about itself.

So I order the inspection, and then I go get five documents. Here they are, and why each one earns the trouble.

Roof Age Is an Insurance Question First

Roof age is an insurance question before it is a condition question. Florida Statute 627.7011(5)(b) is the one to know. An insurer may not refuse to issue or renew over roof age alone. That protection covers any roof less than 15 years old.

Past 15 years the statute does not abandon you. Under 627.7011(5)(c), the homeowner can pay for a roof inspection first. The insurer must allow that before it requires a replacement as a condition of writing the policy. If the inspection shows five years or more of useful life remaining, roof age alone is not a ground to refuse.

Read those two subsections together. The number that governs is the documented date. Not the apparent age.

So I ask for the permit, the final inspection and the date, in writing. A roof described as about ten years old is not ten years old. With no permit record behind it, it is a roof of unknown age. I have watched that sentence cost a buyer a policy quote.

The Wind Mitigation Form Changed April 1, 2026

The wind mitigation report is form OIR-B1-1802. Its full name is the Uniform Mitigation Verification Inspection Form. An authorized inspector completes it.

Two dates on it matter. The Office of Insurance Regulation put a new version into effect April 1, 2026. The form is also valid up to five years. That holds only if no material changes are made to the structure and no inaccuracies are found on it.

So a form from 2021 is expiring. A form on the prior version is worth redoing before closing, not after.

I am not going to quote you a percentage. Every number I found came from a company that sells inspections or windows. That is not a source.

The real figure sits on a different form. Rule 69O-170.017 requires insurers to offer these discounts. Form OIR-B1-1655 is the Notice of Premium Discounts for Hurricane Loss Mitigation. It requires the insurer to hand the policyholder the discounts with exact dollar savings. Ask the carrier for that notice. It beats any estimate I could give you.

The Seawall, and the Fifty Percent Trigger

Fort Lauderdale adopted Section 47-19.13, Resiliency Standards for Tidal Flood Protection. Under 47-19.13.D(1), the minimum top elevation is five feet NAVD88. That applies to a new or substantially repaired tidal flood barrier.

There is a transitional path. A barrier permitted before January 1, 2035 may be allowed four feet NAVD88. The condition is that it be designed to accommodate five feet by January 1, 2050.

The trigger is the part buyers miss. Substantial repair means work along more than fifty percent of the shoreline's length. It also catches any alteration above fifty percent of the fair market replacement cost.

So a seawall near the end of its life is not a repair bill. It is a replacement to current standard. Cross fifty percent and the five foot elevation comes with it.

Get the elevation surveyed. An existing seawall at four feet is a known future cost. A surveyed number is the only version of that cost worth negotiating against.

Ask for the dock permit in the same breath. A dock built without one is the owner's problem until it becomes yours.

One more date. An owner cited for a violation has three hundred sixty-five days to complete repairs.

Past Water Intrusion, and the Case That Governs It

Water intrusion is the item where the law is already on your side. Buyers still fail to use it.

Johnson v. Davis, 480 So. 2d 625, was decided by the Florida Supreme Court in 1985. It retired caveat emptor for Florida homes. Paraphrased, because the opinion's own term for the person selling is a word we avoid here, the holding runs this way. An owner who knows of facts materially affecting the property's value has a duty to disclose them. That duty attaches when those facts are not readily observable and not known to the buyer.

The facts of that case were a roof. The owners knew it leaked and said it did not. The buyers got their deposit back.

So I do not hunt for stains. I ask for history. A repaired leak with a permit and a paid invoice is better news than a dry ceiling with no story. One is a solved problem with a date on it. The other is a question.

I also ask for the insurance claim history. Two water claims and fresh paint tell you something the paint is trying not to.

The Building Already Inspected Itself

If the home sits in a building, the building has already been inspected. You are entitled to read it.

Florida Statute 553.899(3) requires a milestone inspection. It applies to each condominium or cooperative building three stories or more in height. Inland buildings are inspected at 30 years. Buildings within three miles of the coastline are inspected at 25 years. Both repeat every 10 years after that.

Under 553.899(7)(a) a licensed architect or engineer performs a visual examination. If substantial structural deterioration turns up, 553.899(7)(b) requires a second phase. That phase can include destructive testing.

Under 553.899(9) the association has three duties. It must distribute the inspector's summary to owners, post it on the property, and publish the full report on its website.

The reserve study is the other half. It is the one that tells you what is coming. Florida Statute 718.112(2)(g)1 requires a structural integrity reserve study for each building three habitable stories or higher. The study must cover all of the following.

• The roof.
• The structure, including load bearing walls and other primary structural members.
• Fireproofing and fire protection systems.
• Plumbing.
• Electrical systems.
• Waterproofing and exterior painting.
• Windows and exterior doors.
• Any item with a deferred maintenance expense or replacement cost above $25,000.

Here is the date to write down. Under 718.112(2)(g)7, associations in existence before July 1, 2022 had a completion deadline of December 31, 2025. The outside edge is December 31, 2026. We are inside that window right now.

And the owners cannot vote the problem away. Under 718.112(2)(f)2.b, an association controlled by its owners may not underfund those items. It cannot elect to provide no reserves, or less than required, for anything on that roster.

You do not have to ask nicely for any of this. Florida Statute 718.503(2)(a) entitles a buyer in a resale to the following, at the owner's expense.

• The declaration of condominium.
• The articles of incorporation of the association.
• The bylaws and rules of the association.
• The annual financial statement and the annual budget.
• The inspector prepared summary of the milestone inspection report.
• The association's most recent structural integrity reserve study.

Then 718.503(2)(d) gives you a window to walk. It is seven days, excluding Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays, running from execution and receipt of those documents.

Seven business days is enough time to read a reserve study. It is not enough time to go find one that was never done. So a building with no study, three months from the outside edge of the deadline, is a question. Not a formality.

What I Hand My Buyers Before the Inspector Arrives

• The roof permit, the final inspection and the documented date, not the apparent age.
• The existing OIR-B1-1802, checked for its version and its date.
• The carrier's OIR-B1-1655 notice, which carries the dollar figures.
• A surveyed seawall elevation, and the dock permit.
• The insurance claim history, plus an invoice for every repair the owner mentions.
• For a building, the milestone summary and the most recent reserve study, requested in writing on day one of the seven.

None of that is exotic. All of it is obtainable. Most of it is already owed to you by statute. It gets skipped because an inspection feels like the diligence, and it is only the beginning of it.

I have sold luxury homes in Fort Lauderdale for 17 years. The deals that go wrong are almost never the ones where the inspector missed something. They are the ones where nobody asked the building, or the carrier, or the City what it already knew.

Buying here, and want these five chased down before you are in contract? Reach out to me and the MPH Team. I would rather spend a week on paperwork than watch you find out in year two.