Permits

Replacing a roof in Boca Raton: the permit, the 25% rule and the insurance paperwork

A Boca Raton re-roof is a permitted job with hurricane upgrades built in, and the paperwork you keep afterwards is worth money at every insurance renewal. What the city asks for, the state rule that decides how much of an old roof has to be redone, and the form your insurer has to honour.

A new roof in Boca Raton is three jobs that happen to share a ladder: the roof itself, the hurricane upgrades the law attaches to it, and the paperwork that proves both to your insurer. People plan for the first and get surprised by the other two. This guide is about those two.

First: is the city your building department?

Only if the house is inside city limits. A Boca Raton mailing address west of the city line is usually unincorporated Palm Beach County, and then the county issues the permit and everything below about the city's forms does not apply. Check which Boca Raton you are in before you collect quotes.

The permit

A re-roof needs a city building permit. The city lists two kinds on its one- and two-family checklists:

• The regular re-roof permit, reviewed like other building permits. Its checklist is here.
• The over-the-counter re-roof, which is much narrower than its name suggests. It is for a single-family house getting the same kind of roof back, or a lighter one. Tile re-roofs are not eligible, and neither are homes above the improvement value the checklist sets. Most Boca roofs are tile, so most Boca re-roofs take the regular route.

Either way, three things are true:

• Normally the contractor pulls it, and the city will only let a contractor do that once it is registered with the city and current. That is a useful check on its own: a roofer who cannot pull a Boca permit is not ready to work on a Boca house.
• Applications, payments and inspections run through Boca eHub. Our permit guide explains eHub and the separate system the plans go into.
• Larger jobs need a certified Notice of Commencement. The checklist gives the dollar line. Your contractor should prepare it; as the owner, you sign it.

Doing it yourself. The city allows an owner-builder permit only for a single-family home that a person — not a company — owns and lives in and does not rent out, with the owner's sections of the application signed in front of a notary. State law adds that you must supervise the work yourself and that selling or renting the house within a year raises questions. See s. 489.103 and the city's permit process page.

Small repairs. Do not assume a patch is too small for a permit. The city's general exemption for minor work is written around cosmetic jobs like paint and flooring and does not mention roofs. Call the Building Division first.

After a storm. The city's post-storm guide lets emergency repairs start straight away, but a permit has to be applied for by the next business day if the work would normally need one. It also promises faster permits for roofs, windows and doors after a declared storm.

The hurricane upgrades that come with a new roof

When the roof covering comes off, Florida law uses the moment to strengthen the house. The city's Re-roof Mitigation Package sets out what applies:

• A secondary water barrier under the new covering — a second line of defence if the roof covering is damaged.
• Roof-deck attachment checked and, if needed, improved.
• Roof-to-wall connections strengthened on older, higher-value homes, but only where that work fits inside a set share of the re-roof cost. This part needs its own permit, by a general, building or residential contractor rather than the roofer.

These are not optional extras a roofer is upselling. Ask each bidder whether the quote includes them.

The "25% rule", and the exception that changed it

The building code has long said that once more than a quarter of a roof or roof section is repaired or replaced within a year, the whole of it has to be brought up to current code. Since 2022 there is an exception written into state law: if the roof was built, repaired or replaced under the 2007 Florida Building Code or later, only the part being worked on has to meet current code, however large that part is. Cities and counties may not water this down.

So the first question to ask about an old roof is not its age but its permit: when was it last done, and under which code? The city's permit records will tell you.

Historic districts and associations

In the Old Floresta and Pearl City historic districts, and on individually designated historic properties, exterior work — a roof included — needs a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Board, with material samples and colours. Its checklist ties the application deadline to the board's monthly meeting, so build that month into the schedule.

Outside those districts, the rule that usually bites is your homeowners' association: many approve the tile profile, colour and material before work starts. Ask the association before you sign anything.

Hiring the roofer

Check the licence on the state's licence lookup — the city's hire-a-licensed-contractor page links the same search. A roof needs a roofing licence: a general contractor generally cannot do the roofing itself. What to put in the contract, and the rules on insurance claims, are in our guide to hiring a roofer.

The paperwork that pays you back

The wind mitigation form. Florida has one standard form for recording a home's wind-resistance features — roof deck attachment, roof-to-wall connections, the secondary water barrier, opening protection. Insurers must offer discounts for those features (s. 627.0629) and must accept the form when it is signed by one of the inspectors the law names: a licensed home inspector with hurricane mitigation training, a certified building code inspector, a licensed general, building or residential contractor, an engineer or an architect (s. 627.711). A roofing contractor is not on that list, so plan a separate inspection once the new roof is finished. The form can stay valid for up to five years if the house is not materially changed.

Roof age at renewal. An insurer may not refuse to write or renew a policy just because the roof is under 15 years old. For an older roof, it has to let you get an inspection first, and it cannot refuse on age alone if the inspection shows at least five years of life left (s. 627.7011).

Keep the final inspection. The permit, its final inspection and the wind mitigation form are the three documents an insurer, a buyer and the next roofer will all ask for. Keep copies with the house papers.

Help paying for it

The state's My Safe Florida Home program offers free wind inspections and, for eligible owner-occupied homestead houses, matching grants toward approved upgrades — the roof covering and its mitigation work among them. Applications open in phases, the eligibility limits change, and work started before a grant is approved does not qualify. Check its site before you sign a roofing contract, not after.

For storm-season preparation beyond the roof — zones, alerts and debris — see hurricane season in Boca Raton.

Where this comes from

Checked against these on 2026-10-14. Fees, deadlines and portals change — if one of these pages disagrees with this one, the official page is right and we would like to know.

• City of Boca Raton — One & Two Family permit checklists
• City of Boca Raton — Re-Roof checklist (PDF)
• City of Boca Raton — Re-Roof over-the-counter checklist (PDF)
• City of Boca Raton — Re-roof Mitigation Package (PDF)
• City of Boca Raton — Permit process information
• City of Boca Raton — Hire a licensed contractor
• City of Boca Raton — Post-storm permitting and recovery guide (PDF)
• City of Boca Raton — Certificate of Appropriateness checklist (PDF)
• Florida Statutes s. 553.844 — roof mitigation and the 2007 exception
• Florida Statutes s. 627.711 — the wind mitigation form
• Florida Statutes s. 627.0629 — mitigation discounts
• Florida Statutes s. 627.7011 — roof age and renewals
• Florida Statutes s. 489.103 — owner-builders
• My Safe Florida Home