This website will give you information purchasing a home in Monroe County, Florida Keys. We purchased this home August of 2005. We did not ask the right questions when we purchased our house; therefore, we did not know all the rules buying a home in the Florida Keys' flood zone AE classified house. By the way, most of Monroe County is AE flood zone.
After purchasing a home in the Florida Keys, you will need a "transfer of ownership" if you want to get a building permit from Monroe County Building Department. Pretty much, you will need a building permit in this county for anything you want to replace - with the exception of painting the house or a project under $1,000.00. A transfer of ownership is when the County comes into the house to inspect for an apartment in the downstairs, below flood level. The eye-opener of this "transfer of ownership" is that Monroe County does not require this paperwork at any time (by realtors, insurance inspectors, surveyors, mortgage lenders, real estate attorneys) except when you go to their office for a building permit. Our home passed this "transfer of ownership" inspection.
FEMA pays for the debris to be hauled away after a natural disaster. In the summers of 2004 and 2005 the Keys experienced many storms. Illegal downstairs enclosures - below flood level - costed the federal government millions to haul away the damaged sheetrock, appliances, and furniture. Because of these high costs, FEMA wants all downstairs enclosures to only be structural.
In addition to the transfer of ownership inspection, FEMA has been inspecting, since 2002 - a one time inspection - all of the Florida Keys homes built after January 1, 1975. They are aggressively, without exception, getting rid of these apartments. FEMA inspectors have thousands of homes to inspect and after talking to the director of this project, Dianne Bair 305.289.2518, they have completed half of the work.
So, if you come across a home for sale in the Florida Keys with an apartment below flood level and you purchase this Florida Keys home - you will have to tear out that apartment. Be sure when shopping for your dream home in the Florida Keys that you ask someone about these inspections. If the FEMA inspection has already been done - that inspection is a one time inspection, great! But that transfer of ownership inspection is required each time a property is sold, but only if you need a permit from Monroe County.
Our home on Duck Key passed the "transfer of ownership" inspection. We have not received the notice from FEMA for their inspection because that originates from our flood insurance.
305.743.6517
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