Fort Lauderdale, FL Rental Inspections: Inspection Programs (2026)

Sec. 9-237 states the code's purpose as setting 'uniform minimum standards for the occupancy of dwelling, hotel and rooming structures' to eliminate overcrowding, substandard and unsanitary conditions, an objective it summarizes as removing the bad, improving the poor and preserving the good. Sec. 9-238 applies that standard to every building used as a single dwelling, multiple dwelling units, a hotel or a rooming house, regardless of when it was built. Sec. 9-257 gives the enforcing agency's inspecting officers authority, subject to constitutional limits, to enter, examine and survey those structures and their premises, including adjacent vacant lots and nearby business premises, at reasonable hours; the owner, operator, lessee, occupant or person in charge must give the officer free access and supply requested information promptly, and every inspecting officer must carry and show identification.

Sec. 9-240 backs the inspection power with an occupancy bar: once a written notice of violation has become a final order, no one may occupy or re-let the cited dwelling or rooming unit until the violation is resolved. Contested findings go to the Unsafe Structures Board created under Sec. 9-258, a nine-member panel of engineers, architects, contractors, an attorney and other professionals, which must hold a hearing within thirty days of a written petition and can sustain, modify or withdraw the violation notice.