Margate, FL Rental Property Rules: Repairs & Habitability (2026)

Margate handles rental habitability through Article V of Chapter 9, the residential rental unit inspection program, together with the exterior property standards in Land Development Code § 40.355. The program's stated purpose in § 9-36 is to keep a database of owner contacts for health or safety violations, minimum housing code complaints and emergencies at long-term and vacation rentals, and to inspect long-term rentals to address substandard maintenance. Under § 9-38 every rental unit is inspected by the building department at least once in each twelve-month period, and § 9-40 adds inspection upon a substantiated complaint.

The inspection checks compliance with city Code for landscape and exterior maintenance, expired building permits and unpermitted work. Section 9-41 requires an application and fee, and no certificate of inspection issues until the property is found without violations and receives a satisfactory rating. The certificate runs until the anniversary of the application, and failing to hang it is itself a violation. Late renewal applications carry a late fee set by commission resolution, and an inspected property sold to a new owner needs an amended application within thirty (30) calendar days.

Section 9-39 bars a certificate for a unit that failed inspection until reinspection shows compliance, and § 9-42 says the fee covers the initial inspection and one follow-up. An owner living more than thirty (30) miles from the rental must designate a property manager or agent under § 9-43. Separately, § 9-17 sets occupancy in multiple dwellings at two hundred (200) square feet of habitable room for the first occupant and one hundred twenty-five (125) for each additional occupant, and § 40.355(L) treats a deficiency covering more than twenty-five (25) per cent of a wall, roof or paved surface as a blighting influence.