Required for lodging establishments of three storeys or more, valid for three years, and filed on a specific state form. Easy to miss because nothing reminds you.
Florida requires public lodging establishments three storeys or higher to have their balconies, platforms, stairways and railings inspected by a qualified professional, with the result certified on DBPR form HR-7020.
The certificate is valid for three years and a new one has to be filed before the old one expires. Three years is long enough that whoever diarised it last time has usually moved on.
Public lodging establishments of three or more storeys. In practice that means hotels, motels, and — importantly — condominium and apartment buildings operated as transient or vacation lodging.
The line between a private residential condominium and one operating as public lodging is where confusion arises. A private residential building of three storeys or more is instead in scope for milestone inspections and structural integrity reserve studies, which are a different regime entirely. Buildings that do both need both.
A balcony certificate under section 509.2112 and a milestone inspection under section 553.899 are separate requirements with different triggers, different scopes and different forms. Having one does not satisfy the other, and operators of lodging condominiums frequently need both.
Balconies and their supporting structure, platforms, stairways, landings and railings — everything a guest can stand on or lean against above ground level.
The failure modes in Florida are specific: corrosion of embedded reinforcement in concrete balconies driven by salt and humidity, spalling where that corrosion expands, failed post fixings in railings, corroded fasteners in aluminium and steel assemblies, and water ingress at the balcony-to-wall junction.
None of that is visible from the ground, and all of it is progressive.
We cover the whole state. These are the metros we work in most often — each page covers the local housing stock, code position and insurance context.
The certificate on DBPR form HR-7020 is valid for three years, and a new one must be filed before the existing one expires.
Public lodging establishments of three storeys or more. That includes condominium and apartment buildings operated as transient or vacation lodging.
No. Milestone inspections under section 553.899 apply to residential condominiums and cooperatives of three storeys or more at 30 years, or 25 near the coast, then every ten years. Balcony certificates are a lodging requirement on a three-year cycle. A building operating as lodging may need both.
It is a licensing matter with the state, and it surfaces at inspection or at renewal. The practical risk is worse: balcony failures in Florida are a known and serious problem, and an uninspected balcony is an uninsured liability as much as a regulatory one.
One number for the inspection and for whatever it turns up. Licensed, insured contractors across Florida.