Building Permit Database

“Is there one central location where I can get building permit history in the Sate of Florida?”  That is one of the most common questions I hear, and the answer is very simple. No! In South Florida alone, there are roughly one hundred building departments. Each having it’s own database, systems and procedures, and none of them link to each other in anyway. Some building permit data may be available on an individual municipalities website, but the quantity, and quality, of information varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

If you are looking for actual copies of building permit documents, the situation is even more dire. There are only a couple of municipalities that make copies of those documents available online, and that is only recently. For example,  about a year ago,  Miami-Dade County converted from paper document submissions to  digital permit document submissions in pdf format. Those documents can be retrieved via their website. Anything before the conversion is on micro-film and you have to physically go to their office to retrieve copies of the documents.

One of the services we offer at Permit Source is building permit document research and retrieval. You could spend hours just trying to get information by navigating through poorly designed websites, making phone calls, or leaving messages that go  un-returned . Our years of experience and daily interaction with the South Florida building departments allows us to move through the process much more efficiently. We already know the procedures, and where to go, to get the information and/or documents you need.

Permit Fees

Like the cost of everything else, permit fees have increased over the years at a steady pace with the inflation rate, but, during the last year, and in the worst recession in decades, the fees charged by municipalities, has in many cases, increased by 100 percent. With local Florida governments looking for additional revenue sources, one of the first places they targeted was permit fees.

It has been a struggle for the construction industry in South Florida in the past couple of years and the increased fees have made it even more difficult for contractors to stay in business. Permit Source Clients tell us that businesses, and property owners, make decisions to hold off doing work, or they try to do it without a permit, just because of the astronomical permit fees. A perfect example of over inflated permit fees, is the City of Weston. A recent job having a total construction cost of $925.00 was assessed a permit fee of $525.00.

To add to the problem, more and more municipalities are requiring all or part of the permit fees be paid up-front. They have increased re-inspection fees and added re-review fees. The first thing the permit clerks say when you walk in the door is “What is your check number?”

The rule of thumb to use, as a rough estimate of permit fees use to be 1.5 percent. That number has increased to 3-5 percent. Cities such as, Key Biscayne and Weston, which have always had extremely high permit fees can be as much as 10 percent. There are a few municipalities that have held their permit fees at pre-recession levels but they are few and far between. Contractors and property owners be warned!