Using the 20 people that died in Hurricane Ian and the 2 men that died in the Palermo gas leak back in August as his setup, Fort Myers Beach Mayor Dan Allers asked members of the Florida Legislature to consider changing the law that allows 3rd party private inspectors.
Allers spoke before the House Natural Resources and Disasters Subcommittee at the request of Representative Adam Botana. Back in 2002 the state of Florida passed Statute 553.791. That law, the result of construction industry lobbying, gives homeowners the option to choose a 3rd party certified inspector. The reason for the law was to help speed up the process. Florida is a growing state with a lot of new homes being built. If a homeowner wanted to pay a little more money to get an inspector to their home quicker, that option was there. The 3rd party inspector does the inspection, makes sure the home is being built according to the plans submitted to the local municipality, and submits the proper paperwork to that municipality in a timely fashion. All the municipalities inspection rules and deadlines are supposed to be followed.
Allers said 3rd party inspectors take the town’s building official out of the equation. “It takes away from our putting eyes on the project. In this case two people came down to their home. They turned their pool heater on, which was put illegally inside their home, and both died, because this wasn’t inspected by our building official.”
Allers asked the committee members to consider, even if it’s only during a state of emergency, that a state certified building official has to lay eyes on every single project. “Although we want to believe that everyone is being honest, in the time of crisis, bad actors do come out.”
Allers also told the committee that the federal government failed Fort Myers Beach. He was specifically talking about the trailer program and thanked the state for stepping in with its own trailer program to help residents on the island. “I think continuing that (state) program for future disasters is very important.
Finally, the Mayor told the committee that the SBA (Small Business Administration) was a huge failure. “We had businesses chomping at the bit trying to figure out how to get back to work and help people, serve people, and get workers back to work. One of our restaurants (La Ola) set up a trailer 10 days after the storm and started offering food to FEMA and USAR teams on his own dime. He had no help from anyone. He is one of the reasons we’ve been kicked out of the National Flood Insurance Program, because he was innovative. He thought outside of the box. He put modulars on trailers and showed through a video that he could get them off the island in less than 4 hours and that still wasn’t good enough. He followed all the rules and we still lost our flood insurance discount, because we made decisions to try to get our residents back, to try to get our economy back. I don’t think that’s fair.”
Allers said the state should be able to look at something to allow the communities to get something in place much quicker. “There’s a lot of process issues. If someone is trying to get help and you have to fill out more paperwork than you do to buy a home, that’s a shame.” Allers said streamlining the process for people to get help is one of the top priorities the state can help with in addition to his concern about 3rd party inspectors.
Allers also told the committee that Fort Myers beach is still waiting on $119 million from FEMA to start projects on the beach that are ready to be done. He called that a broken process when more than 2 years later the town is still waiting for the money to be “obligated.”
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While continuing above to whine on LaOla’s behalf Dan said the town has been kicked out of the federal flood insurance program. Please say it ain’t so Dan. The discounts were suspended but not the insurance as far as I’ve heard.
While continuing to whine on Lola’s behalf Dan said above the town has been kicked out of the federal flood insurance program. Please say it ain’t so Dan. The discounts were suspended but not the insurance as far as I’ve heard.
I’ve never heard the mayor say that. What he’s said is that FMB could *potentially* be kicked out of NFIP.
Odd that you characterize his advocacy for local businesses as “whining,” but we all have our perspectives.
It’s unfortunate that council members lose either way. If they advocate for local businesses, it’s called whining; if they take no extraordinary steps to support businesses and residents, it’s called not caring.
Who said the town building official would do any better? He has allowed code violations, this is one of the reasons the town is in hot water with FEMA. Can the town create an ordinance not allowing private inspectors? The minute you see a private inspector used it’s a red flag, some developers inform property owners to hire a private inspector as they will approve anything for the right amount. Some of these private inspectors charge $5000 plus per inspection, using the towns inspectors is included with your permit so there is zero additional cost for inspections. It’s a joke. If the building official and the town were proactive, they would inspect any home who used a private inspector. It’s a loop hole that should be closed!!
Third party inspection providers offer more protection for the homeowner. Insurance company inspectors represent the insurance companies. Having been impacted by 3 hurricanes, it was extremely difficult.
The inspectors are not the insurance companies. They are either private or the town does the inspections. Private inspectors is a scam and should be outlawed!! They offer nothing to the homeowner but to approve work that’s not code compliant. They actually put homeowners at risk like the article says.
Thank you, Dan!
I was witness to the “town” inspection process at almost each and every inspection for a gut/rehab property I own. And I was also witness/present for a new build where we used a 3rd party inspector. The town inspectors do a fine job, but they are spread thin and to be honest, that sometimes leads to missing things. The 3rd party inspector checked EVERY detail and wrote a report. I’m sorry to say, but I had a situation where something that was missed in the town inspection process but thank god nothing serious happened.
I don’t ever see the state eliminating the option of using a private provider option for plan review and inspections during construction. Like any profession, there are bad actors and good actors. In my years as an architect doing commercial projects, I have seen very good private provider companies utilized and I have seen shady ones. I would highly recommend that the Town of Fort Myers Beach look to other municipalites in Florida for direction, especially those that are in flood zones, to look into how they regulate the third party inspectors. In some jurisdictions, they require the private providor company to submit resumes and licenses of each inspector that the company employees and provide what their credentials are.
This is what Collier County has on their website regarding private providers: “Note: If the private provider or duly authorized representatives are not licensed in ALL trades for plan review and inspections, they will be put on RESTRICTED status and will be required to upload all registration documents, including insurance & duly authorized representative documents, in addition to the NTBO, with every permit submission.”
I don’t believe the town does this right now. Also, in Tampa, the town will do inspections for any flood related inspections in order to maintain their compliance with NFIP. Per Florida State Statues regarding private providers, the engineer of the building, cannot be an inspector for the private provider. There are ways to improve on the process. You can’t punish all of the good actors because of one idiot contractor that went roque.
Albert that is/was not my intent. You are 100 percent correct there are bad actors in every profession. I’m simply looking for ways to ensure a homeowner is protected as much as possible. I’m not asking to take away anything that will speed up the process. Just trying to add an extra layer of security for a homeowner that is either out of state or over their head in a very complex process. I wish everyone was as honest and straight forward as you in the building profession, but sadly that is not the reality.
I support almost everything the mayor does but he’s wrong on Private Provider inspection. Private Provider plan review and inspection speeds the process of rebuilding. And it lessens the burden on the Town.
The focus should be on work being done without permits. Which is probably what happened in the gas leak tragedy and certainly what contributed to losing the Fema discount.
I’d support more code enforcement support to watch for unlicensed contractors and unpermittied work.
That is fair. I’m more concerned with them under a state of emergency. As we have seen, contractors come out of the woodwork after a storm and not all are legit or have any intention to follow the FL building code. Municipalities are held responsible for making sure they are, so why wouldn’t we want our building officials to have eyes on a project. The intent is not to slow down any process, but rather just get a second set of eyes on it in times of disaster. The end goal is to not have repetitive losses and this could be an added layer of protection for a homeowner to help achieve that.
The intent here is great and an added level of certification especially in a state of emergency will help at every level. We were ready to sign up a demo contractor right up to the last minute when he said to me that I needed to pull and owner work permit because he “wasn’t exactly certified to do “external demo”. I obviously did not go forward with them, but how many did? How much time, effort, and money was wasted by so many when instead we may be able to have access to a list of certified contractors for various work needed to be done. The Town did put out a list, but maybe a further certification layer will both weed out the bad actors and advance the whole process. There is nothing worse than being taken advantage of when vulnerable. We did report the bad actor in our case and the state did follow up with us. Thank you, Mayor Allers, for going to these lengths to tighten up the process!!