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From cleared lot to certificate of occupancy: where the hold points sit, and which draws they gate

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The loan closed, the lot is scraped, and interest is accruing on money that has not bought anything yet. The schedule you hand the lender is a list of stages, and the lender will release funds against each one. What actually controls those dates is a separate list, owned by the building department: a chain of inspections, each one a hold point that some later piece of work is not allowed to cover until it passes. Read the two lists side by side and you can see where the schedule has float and where it has none.

Two sequences running on one site

Someone on a homebuilding forum asked for the correct order of residential construction, and the replies came back as a trade list: footing, slab, walls, roof, rough-ins, drywall, finishes. That order is right. It is also the half that nobody has to approve.

The other half is the order in which the building official releases each stage. Section 110.6 of the Florida Building Code says work may not proceed past an inspection point without approval, and work that failed may not be covered until the official authorizes it. So every trade transition on a new house has a gate in it, and the gate is opened by someone who does not work for you. Our Miami-Dade permitting overview covers why inspections are staged that way. This piece is about where each gate sits on a ground-up job, what it is waiting for, and what that means for a draw.

Before the first inspection, a recording the inspector will look for

The permit can issue without a notice of commencement on record; Florida’s lien statute says so expressly. The inspections cannot proceed without one. Section 713.135 requires the permit card to warn that the notice must be recorded and posted on site before the first inspection, and where the direct contract is greater than $5,000 a copy has to be filed with the issuing authority before that first inspection. If it is not, neither the department nor a private provider may perform or approve subsequent inspections until the copy arrives.

On a construction loan this is a closing-table item, not a site item: the notice names the lender and is recorded by the owner, so it gets settled alongside the loan documents rather than on the job. A foundation that cannot be inspected is a foundation that cannot be poured.

Temporary power belongs here too. Miami-Dade’s inspection categories carry a separate electrical inspection for temporary service for construction, which means the saw and the pump on day one already depend on an approval.

Below the slab: the stage where three disciplines share one pour

The foundation inspection happens after the trenches are dug and the forms are up, and before any concrete. Section 110.3 lists what it covers: stem walls, a monolithic slab-on-grade, piling and pile caps, footers and grade beams. The county’s own category list separates foundation or monolithic slab from a later slab inspection, which matters on a stem-wall house where the footing and the floor are two pours on two days.

The underground trades are hold points on the same pour. Plumbing ground rough, underground electrical and any underground mechanical work are inspected in open trenches before backfill, and the county lists foundation grounding as an electrical category of its own.

Then the termite treatment, which is the easiest one to lose a pour over. Section 1816 has the soil treated after excavation, backfill and compaction are done, and the treated soil left alone until the slab is poured. Disturb it and it gets retreated. If rain falls on it before the vapor retarder goes down, it gets retreated. A bait system skips those stages, but the signed installation and monitoring contract goes to the building official before the slab is poured, which moves the hold point to paperwork rather than removing it.

If the lot sits in a flood hazard area, the foundation stage carries one more gate that a lender should be watching closely. Section 110.3 requires elevation certification once the lowest floor is placed and before further vertical construction. The block or the framing does not go up until the elevation is documented. Our flood zone piece explains how a property ends up mapped; on a new house the consequence is simply that one more document sits between the slab and the walls.

Quick Answer

What are the hold points between a cleared lot and a certificate of occupancy?

In order: the recorded notice of commencement before the first inspection, then foundation, underground trades and termite soil treatment before the slab, then the structural shell, then dry-in and roofing, then rough-ins, insulation and drywall, then a final for every trade. At each one, the work that would conceal what was inspected waits for the building official’s approval.

That last clause is the one to build a schedule around. A hold point does not stop the whole site, only the trades that would bury the item under inspection, so float exists wherever a crew can work on something the pending inspection does not cover.

It is also why a draw schedule should name inspections rather than percentages. A draw tied to an approved inspection has an independent record behind it. A draw tied to somebody’s estimate of completion has an argument behind it.

Aerial view of an eight-unit multi-family building in West Miami — From our West Miami multi-family project. The more units a building has, the more of its inspection record a lender or a buyer will eventually ask to see.Commercial Construction →

The shell, where block and frame stop sharing a sequence

Up to the slab, a concrete block house and a wood-framed house in Miami-Dade run the same course. Above it they diverge, and the divergence is a different set of hold points rather than a difference in quality.

A CBS house has a structural inspection the framed house does not. The county lists tie-beam, reinforcing and columns as its own building category: the steel in the vertical cells, the columns and the tie beam gets seen before the concrete that fills them hides it for good. That is a mid-shell hold point, and on a two-story block house it repeats at each level. Section 110.3’s framing list names the same items, vertical cells and columns and lintels and tie beams, alongside trusses and their connectors.

A framed house moves its weight into sheathing and connections, and its gates follow. The county lists roof truss, permanent bracing and sheathing as one category and carries separate in-progress and final categories for structural panels. Section 110.3 lets the sheathing inspection ride with dry-in or happen separately at the contractor’s request, which is a small but real piece of schedule control. Our frame versus block comparison covers the rest of what that wall decision sets off.

Openings are their own gate on either system. The county lists buck and fastener as a building category, and Section 110.3 requires impact-resistant systems to be checked against the plans, the manufacturer’s installation instructions and the product approval. In the high-velocity hurricane zone that approval is the document the inspector reads the installation against, so a window substituted after permitting has to arrive with its own approval and sometimes its own fastening detail.

Dry-in, the milestone everybody wants to bank

Lenders and owners like dry-in because it is the day the inside of the building stops being weather-exposed, and interior trades can be scheduled with some confidence. On a Miami-Dade roof it is also a sequence of inspections rather than one: the county lists tin cap, dry-in, base sheet or anchor sheet as a roofing category, then tile placing where tile is the covering, then final. Section 110.3 frames roofing the same way, covering dry-in, insulation, the roof covering and flashing.

So a draw labelled “roof complete” can mean three different things on paper. Name the inspection the draw is tied to, and the lender’s inspector and the building official are finally describing the same day.

The last time anyone sees inside the walls

Electrical, plumbing and mechanical rough-ins are inspected after framing and bracing are in place and before wall or ceiling membranes go up. Insulation has an inspection of its own in the county’s list, and Section 110.3.8 adds energy inspections covering envelope insulation values, fenestration, duct insulation and equipment efficiency. Where gypsum board forms part of a fire-rated or shear assembly, Section 110.3.5 requires an inspection before taping and finishing; the county carries lathing, fire wall and drywall as one category.

This is the densest stretch of hold points on the job, and the one where a failed call costs most, because drywall is usually booked against the day the last rough passes. A schedule that stacks every rough-in on the same week has made one inspector’s afternoon the critical path for four trades.

Final is plural

Every trade on the permit closes with its own final: building, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, roofing, and any gas or pool work on the job. Section 111.2 lets the certificate of occupancy issue only after the building official finds no violations, and Section 111.1 bars use or occupancy of the building until it does.

Several items that are not inspections still sit in front of that certificate. When the termite protection is complete, the licensed pest control company issues a certificate of compliance to the building department stating that the building received a complete treatment. The exterior vertical barrier goes on promptly after construction is complete, landscaping and irrigation included, so a landscaper who arrives after the treatment can undo it. Miami-Dade also runs zoning and landscaping inspections and a final zoning inspection as building categories, which means the site work outside the walls has its own final.

In a flood hazard area, the final inspection requires the lowest-floor elevation documentation, and the certificate of occupancy itself has to state that this documentation is on file. FEMA’s elevation certificate distinguishes construction drawings, building under construction and finished construction, and the form tells you a new certificate is required when the building is complete. The one prepared at the slab stage does not carry the house to the end.

Larger buildings add their own gates. A threshold building needs the special inspector’s signed and sealed completion statement before the certificate issues, and Miami-Dade Fire Rescue performs certificate of occupancy inspections on commercial properties, apartments and townhomes among them, though not on single-family homes. On a multi-family building those reviews belong on the schedule from the start.

Quick Answer

What has to be in place before a certificate of occupancy issues on new construction?

Every trade final has passed and the building official has found no open violations. The file also needs the pest control company’s certificate of compliance for termite treatment, a passed final zoning inspection, and in a flood hazard area the lowest-floor elevation documentation, which the certificate states is on file. Threshold buildings add a sealed special-inspector statement.

None of those items is a construction task, which is why they get missed. They are documents produced by people who are not on the general contractor’s crew, and each one has to be requested, received and delivered.

We track them as line items from the first week, alongside the inspections, because a house that is physically finished and administratively incomplete still cannot be occupied, sold or refinanced on the last draw.

Reading the sequence for float

Lay the trade order over the hold points and the schedule sorts itself into two kinds of time. Some work runs parallel to a pending inspection because it does not conceal anything under review: site drainage while the shell is waiting, interior framing in one wing while the other wing’s rough-in is open, window procurement against an approved product. Other work stands still until a gate opens, and no amount of crew will move it.

A credible schedule shows that difference on its face. It names who calls each inspection, which document must exist before it can be called, and which trade is booked behind it. It treats the termite certificate, the elevation certificate and the zoning final as deliverables with owners, not as things the closeout will collect. And it ties each draw to an approval somebody else granted, which is the only kind of milestone a budget conversation with a lender does not reopen.

File the notice of commencement before anyone books the foundation inspection. Without it on file, inspections after the first cannot be performed or approved, by the department or by a private provider
Protect the termite treatment as a pour condition. Disturbed soil and rain before the vapor retarder both trigger retreatment, and a bait-system contract has to reach the building official before the slab
In a flood hazard area, put the lowest-floor elevation certification between the slab and the walls in the schedule, and order the finished-construction elevation certificate early enough to have it at final
Expect a CBS shell to carry a tie-beam, reinforcing and columns hold point that a framed shell does not, and build it into the draw for each level
Tie draws to named inspections rather than to percentages. Roof complete, for example, spans several roofing inspections in Miami-Dade
Treat the termite certificate of compliance, the zoning final and any special-inspector statement as deliverables with an owner and a date

Interior of a South Florida house stripped to studs with framing and mechanical rough-in exposed — Rough-ins open. This is the last stage at which anyone outside the trades sees inside the walls, and the densest stretch of hold points on a build.Additions & Structural →

How we plan a lot-to-certificate schedule

On a ground-up build we write the inspection sequence before the construction schedule, then hang the trades on it. Every hold point gets an owner, a prerequisite document and the trade booked behind it, and every draw in the lender’s schedule points at one of those approvals. Where the address sits in a flood zone, uses block, or puts more than one unit under the roof, the extra gates are in the plan on day one rather than discovered at the stage they belong to.

If you are carrying a lot and a loan and need a schedule that will stand up to a draw inspector, request a proposal. We build across Miami-Dade and Broward, and we will walk the sequence for your address before the first inspection is called.

Frequently Asked Questions

When the demolition permit is closed, not when the debris is hauled. The code gives demolition its own pair of inspections: one after the utilities are disconnected and secured, and a final once the demolition is complete. Until that final passes, the property record still shows an open permit on a structure that no longer exists, and anyone pulling the permit history for the new loan will see it. Utility disconnection is the step that tends to set the pace, because it depends on the providers rather than on the demolition crew. Treat the demolition final as the first milestone of the new build, ahead of the foundation, and make sure the new permit application is not waiting on a closeout nobody scheduled.

The structural sequence is the same; the list of approving parties grows. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue’s fire prevention division performs certificate of occupancy inspections on commercial properties, and it names apartments and townhomes among them while excluding single-family homes, so confirm early how your building will be classified for that review. Fire-rated separations between units bring the gypsum inspection into play wherever the board is part of a rated assembly. If the building meets Florida’s threshold criteria, a special inspector performs structural inspections under a plan filed before the permit, and that inspector’s sealed completion statement is required before the certificate. More units also mean more trade finals and more meters, so the closeout has more parallel paths to converge.

The failed item stays exposed and the trade behind it waits. The code bars covering non-compliant work until the building official authorizes it, so the correction is made, the inspection is called again, and nothing that would conceal the item moves in the meantime. What matters for the schedule is which box the inspector checks. Miami-Dade’s inspection report distinguishes a plain re-inspection from outcomes that reach back into the design: a plan revision, a shop drawing, a special inspection report, a subsidiary permit or an elevation certificate. A re-inspection costs days. A revision re-enters plan review and pulls the engineer back in, and that is the version that moves a draw date.

No, and treating them as interchangeable causes most draw disputes. The building inspector decides whether the work complies with code and may be covered. The lender’s draw inspector, usually a consultant engaged by the bank, decides whether enough work is in place to justify releasing the next tranche of money. A passed framing inspection does not release a draw by itself, and a draw inspector’s sign-off approves nothing under the code. The two do not always agree on what complete means either: one is reading the permit, the other is reading a budget line. Supplying the inspection record with each draw request closes most of that gap, because it hands the lender’s consultant a third-party approval to anchor its own estimate.

Possibly, through a temporary certificate of occupancy. The code allows one for a portion of a building that can be occupied safely, and the building official sets how long it remains valid. Miami-Dade lists the temporary certificate as an inspection category covering all trades, and extensions as a separate category, which tells you a temporary certificate is something that expires and gets renewed rather than a soft final. Whether a portion is safe to occupy is the building official’s judgment, so plan on that portion being finished in every respect that affects the people in it, while the remaining work continues around them. Check what your lender and your insurer each require before relying on a temporary certificate to start rent, because both may be underwriting the final certificate rather than the temporary one.