Roof permits in Lee County

A roof permit is not paperwork your contractor deals with while you get on with your life. It is the mechanism that puts an independent inspector on your roof, and it is one of the few consumer protections in residential roofing that does not depend on trusting the person selling you the work.

Here is what actually has to be filed in Lee County, what the inspector looks at, and why each piece of it matters to you specifically.

When a permit is required

In Lee County, a permit is required to replace, repair or re-cover a roof. Not just a full replacement. Repairs too.

There are additional requirements in specific cases. Converting a roof to tile where the structure did not previously carry tile requires an engineer’s approval letter, because tile is significantly heavier than shingle and the structure has to be capable of carrying it.

What has to be filed

Product approval numbers

This is the one most homeowners have never heard of and the one that does the most work.

Every roofing material used on your house has to carry a Florida product approval, and the approval number has to be filed with the permit application. That approval is not generic. It has to match the design wind speed, the exposure category and the building height for your specific address.

Why it matters to you: it is the paper trail that establishes the materials on your roof are rated for the conditions at your house rather than at some average Florida address. It is also, incidentally, what makes it hard for a contractor to quietly substitute a cheaper product than the one you were quoted.

Product pressure documentation

Alongside the approval numbers, documentation showing the products meet the pressure requirements for your wind speed, exposure and height.

Notice of Commencement

Required on any project over $5,000. It is a recorded document identifying the property, the owner and the contractor, and it starts the clock on Florida’s construction lien process.

Roof Inspection Affidavit

Required on residential re-roofs before the final inspection can be signed off.

Roof plan

On a partial replacement, a plan showing the work area. This is what stops a repair permit being used to cover work in a different part of the roof.

Owner-builder disclosure

Required if the work is being permitted by an unlicensed installer under an owner-builder arrangement. If you are being asked to pull the permit yourself as the owner, understand what that means: you are taking on the licensed contractor’s legal responsibility for the work, including liability for anyone injured on the job.

The inspections

Which inspections apply depends on the roof type. The common stages are:

• Roof dry in. After the underlayment is on and before the covering goes over it. This is the important one, because underlayment is the layer that actually keeps water out of your house and it is the layer nobody can see once the job is finished.
• Roof in process. Used on tile installations, checking the attachment method partway through.
• Roof final. Completion.

The dry-in inspection is worth understanding as a homeowner. It is your one opportunity, and an independent inspector’s one opportunity, to see the underlayment and its fastening before it is permanently covered. A contractor who wants to go straight from tear-off to covering without a dry-in inspection is asking you to take the most important part of the job on trust.

Permits expire

A Lee County permit expires if no inspection takes place within 180 days of issuance. That matters on jobs that stall, which after a widespread storm event is a lot of jobs. If work on your house has paused, the permit clock has not.

Which office issues yours

This is where people lose a week.

• Cape Coral runs its own building division. City addresses permit through the city.
• Bonita Springs runs its own community development department. Same principle.
• Fort Myers addresses go through the City of Fort Myers if they are inside the city limits, and through Lee County if they are in unincorporated territory. Those boundaries are not intuitive, and a Fort Myers postal address does not mean a City of Fort Myers jurisdiction.
• Estero and the surrounding communities: confirm the jurisdiction for the specific address rather than assuming.

Contractors in Lee County file through the county’s eConnect system. We confirm the correct jurisdiction for your address before filing, because filing in the wrong place is a week you do not get back.

Why you should care that a permit was pulled

Four concrete reasons, none of them about following rules for their own sake.

An independent inspector looks at the work. Someone who does not work for your contractor and is not paid by them checks the underlayment and the attachment.

It creates a record that your roof met code on a date. That record is what establishes whether the SB 4-D exception to the 25% rule applies to your roof in future. Unpermitted work leaves you without it.

It matters when you sell. Unpermitted roofing work surfaces during a sale, and it surfaces at the worst possible moment in the negotiation.

It can matter to your insurer. A carrier asking questions about a claim may ask about permit history. Not having it is not a position you want to be arguing from.

Questions worth asking any roofer

• Will you pull the permit, or are you asking me to pull it as an owner-builder?
• Which jurisdiction does my address permit through?
• What product approval numbers are you filing, and do they match my wind speed and exposure?
• Will there be a dry-in inspection before the covering goes on?
• Can I have a copy of the permit and the inspection results?

Every one of those has a fast, specific answer if the contractor intends to do the job properly.