Structural Plans Review for Municipalities: How Independent Peer Review Works Under the Florida Building Code

The Short Version

Structural plans review in Florida happens along three different routes, and the rules depend on which one is in use. A building department reviews plans itself, with its own staff or with outside reviewers it contracts. An owner or contractor can hire a private provider under Fla. Stat. 553.791 to review the plans instead, with the building department keeping authority to issue the permit. And an owner, developer or lender can commission an independent peer review before the plans are ever submitted.

The first two are code compliance reviews on behalf of the permitting process, and Florida law controls who may perform them, how fast the building official must respond, and what the reviewer certifies. The third is a check on the engineering itself. For municipalities managing permit backlogs and developers managing schedules, knowing the difference decides how a review is contracted, documented and relied on. Independent structural plans review of that kind is what this guide explains.

Three Kinds of Structural Review

The three routes answer different questions for different clients. Each has its own paperwork, its own liability, and its own limits on who can do the work.

• Building department plan review. The authority having jurisdiction checks the permit documents for compliance with the Florida Building Code, using its own plans examiners or reviewers it contracts to supplement them.
• Private provider plan review. Under Fla. Stat. 553.791, the fee owner, or the contractor with the owner's written authorization, hires a licensed private provider to review the plans and certify compliance by affidavit, and the building official then issues the permit or cites specific deficiencies.
• Peer review. An owner, developer, lender or design team commissions an independent engineer to test the design for completeness, constructibility and code compliance before submittal. It does not replace either of the other reviews.
  

Who Can Review Plans in Florida

Part XII of Chapter 468 of the Florida Statutes licenses building code administrators, plans examiners and inspectors. It defines a plans examiner as a person qualified to determine that plans submitted for permits comply with the applicable building codes, and it is the licensing framework for the people who review plans on a building department's behalf.

Two provisions matter most for outside reviewers. Fla. Stat. 468.617 allows local governments, school boards, state universities and state agencies to contract with persons certified under Part XII to perform plan reviews and inspections, and separately lets counties and municipalities contract with any person or entity for building code services regulated under that part. The same section says an individual or entity may not examine plans on projects it designed or permitted.

Private provider review follows its own definition. Under Fla. Stat. 553.791, a private provider is a person licensed as a building code administrator under Part XII, as an engineer under Chapter 471, or as an architect under Chapter 481. A private provider may only perform services within the disciplines covered by that person's license, and may not provide them on any building the provider or the provider's firm designed or constructed. A structural engineer acting as a private provider therefore reviews the structural discipline, not the whole permit set.

How Private Provider Plan Review Works

Section 553.791 sets out the private provider process in detail, including deadlines that bind the building official. The steps below follow the statute.

• The fee owner, or the contractor with the owner's written authorization, signs a written contract with the private provider or the provider's firm.
• The building official is notified in writing, at the time of permit application, of the services the private provider will perform, with each provider's license number and qualifications and, if the official requires it, a certificate of insurance.
• The private provider reviews the plans for compliance with the applicable codes and signs an affidavit, under oath, that the provider reviewed them, holds the appropriate license, and found that they comply.
• The building official has 20 business days after receiving the application and affidavit, or 5 business days for a single-trade review on a one or two family dwelling, to issue the permit or give written notice of the specific plan features that do not comply, citing code chapters and sections.
• If the private provider is a licensed engineer or architect who seals the affidavit, that period is 10 business days, and a notice must state with specificity the deficiencies, the reasons the application failed, and the codes violated.
• If no deficiency notice arrives in time, the application is deemed approved as a matter of law and the permit must be issued the next business day. After revisions, the official has the remaining time plus 5 business days, and later reviews are limited to the deficiencies already cited.
  

The statute also requires the local jurisdiction to reduce the permit fee by the cost it saves, sets minimum professional liability insurance for private providers of $1 million per occurrence and $2 million aggregate on projects of $5 million or less, and $2 million and $4 million above that, and limits building department audits of the same provider to four a year unless there is an immediate threat to public safety.

What Municipalities Should Know

For a building department, outside structural review is a way to handle peak volume and specialty projects without adding permanent staff. The contract route under Section 468.617 lets the department keep review in its own process, with outside reviewers issuing comments on its behalf, while the conflict rule keeps them off any project they designed or permitted.

Private provider review works differently, because the department does not choose the reviewer. The building official may not replicate the private provider's plan review except as the statute allows, may not adopt rules or qualifications more stringent than the statute, and must post its audit procedures publicly before auditing. The official keeps the authority to deny a permit that does not comply and to issue a stop-work order for a condition that is an immediate threat to public safety. Section 553.791 also lets counties, municipalities, school districts and special districts use private providers on their own public buildings and works.

In both routes, the value of the review depends on how specific it is. A comment that cites the exact provision of the Florida Building Code, ASCE 7 or ACI 318 behind each deficiency gives the design engineer something to correct and gives the building official a record that holds up on appeal.

What a Structural Review Checks

Whichever route is in use, a structural review covers the same technical ground. In South Florida it usually includes these items.

• The governing code edition, occupancy, risk category and any local technical amendments.
• Gravity and lateral load paths, including diaphragms, shear walls, frames and continuity to the foundation.
• Wind design: design wind speed, exposure, enclosure classification, uplift, and in Miami-Dade and Broward the High-Velocity Hurricane Zone provisions and product approval coverage.
• Foundations, including soil bearing assumptions and, in flood hazard areas, flood loads.
• Details and connections, checked against the calculations rather than on their own.
• Deferred submittals such as trusses, cold-formed framing, railings and canopies, checked against the permit documents.
• For threshold buildings, the structural inspection plan and the special inspection requirements.
  

How Peer Review Differs

A peer review is commissioned by the owner, developer, lender or design team, not by the authority having jurisdiction, and it happens before submittal. Its purpose is to find load path gaps, missing details and calculation errors while they are still inexpensive to fix, and to reduce the number of review cycles at the building department. It is common on large or complex projects, on projects where a lender wants independent assurance, and on existing buildings where a repair or alteration depends on assumptions about the original structure, such as a load-bearing wall removal.

Peer review does not carry the legal effect of a plan review. It produces a comment letter for the design engineer, who remains responsible for the design and seals the drawings. The reviewer must be independent of the design, and a firm that performs both plan review and peer review should never do so on the same project for opposing parties.

Mistakes That Slow Permits Down

Most delays in structural review come from the process around it rather than from the engineering. These are the ones that come up most.

• Using a reviewer connected to the design, which both statutes prohibit for their respective routes.
• Comment letters without code citations, which lead to arguments instead of corrections.
• No written back-check, so it is unclear which comments were closed and which remain.
• Deferred submittals left to the end, when truss or railing designs turn out not to match the permit drawings.
• Reviewing to the wrong code edition around a code change, such as the 9th Edition of the Florida Building Code taking effect on December 31, 2026.
• For private provider review, an incomplete notice to the building official, missing license numbers or insurance, which can stop the clock before it starts.
  

How M&P Consulting Engineers Approaches Plans Review

Every review we perform is done by a licensed Professional Engineer and returned as an organized comment letter that cites the specific Florida Building Code, ASCE 7, ACI 318, AISC or TMS provision behind every item. We confirm the governing code edition and jurisdiction-specific amendments first, review drawings, details and calculations together, separate true code deficiencies from clarifications, and close each review in writing for the permit file. Most single-building first-pass reviews are returned in 48 to 72 hours.

Jonnatan R. Mendez, PE, SI, brings more than 20 years of structural design and qualified plans examiner experience under the Florida Building Code, and he is a Florida Threshold Building Special Inspector. That combination means we have sat on both sides of the comment letter. Our structural design and analysis work keeps the review grounded in what is practical to build, and our expert witness practice gives us a clear view of how design documents are judged when something goes wrong.

We provide plans review and peer review for building departments, developers and design teams across South Florida, including Doral, Hialeah and Pompano Beach, and we never perform both on the same project for opposing parties.

Common Questions About Structural Plans Review in Florida

Need an Independent Structural Review?

M&P Consulting Engineers provides structural plans review for building departments and peer review for developers and design teams across South Florida. Send the drawing set and the code edition, or call 866-531-7621, and we will confirm scope, fee and turnaround before we start.

Sources

Fla. Stat. 553.791, Alternative plans review and inspection, Florida Legislature. Checked 25 September 2026.

Fla. Stat. 468.603, Definitions, and 468.617, Joint building code inspection department; other arrangements (Chapter 468, Part XII, Building Code Administrators and Inspectors), Florida Legislature. Checked 25 September 2026.

Florida Building Code, Building, 8th Edition (2023).