Clermont roof permits: two offices, one city name

Start with the Lake County Property Appraiser's record for your address. The millage group or taxing district on the record says whether the parcel is inside the City of Clermont or in unincorporated Lake County, and that is the answer. The ZIP code is only a hint: 34711 is mostly city but has county pockets, 34715 is mixed, and 34714 is entirely unincorporated. ZIPs 34712 and 34713 are post-office-box ZIPs; the houses themselves are in 34711, 34714 or 34715.

The general pattern, confirmed parcel by parcel before we file anything:

Why it matters beyond the address on the form: the permit record is what tells you the roof's permit date, which decides whether Florida's 25 percent rule applies (roofs permitted before March 1, 2009) and which code edition the roof was built to for a wind mitigation form. Searching the wrong office's portal returns nothing and leads homeowners to conclude the roof was never permitted when it simply lives in the other system. The Clermont neighborhoods we serve page lists what we usually find for each community.

City of Clermont Building Services, City Hall, 685 W Montrose St, Clermont, FL 34711. Main line (352) 394-4081; Building Services (352) 241-7315.

• Portal. The city's eTRAKiT portal (etrakit.clermontfl.org). Re-roof permits are issued over the counter through it to registered contractors, and the same portal lets you search any address's permit history and any contractor's permits in the city.
• Fee. Six cents per square foot of roof area with a $78 minimum. A re-inspection, when the first one fails, costs $105, which is one reason we photograph everything the first time.
• Application. The city requires the Florida Product Approval number for every component on the application: shingle or tile or panel, underlayment, drip edge, vents, fasteners, flashing. An estimate without those numbers is a scope that cannot be permitted as written.
• Affidavit and photographs. Before the final inspection the city requires a notarized Re-Roof Affidavit (the 2024 revision) with photographs of the sheathing fastening, the seam treatment, the underlayment, the drip edge, the starter course and the flashing. We take those photographs as the roof goes on, because they cannot be taken afterward.
• Scheduling. Next-day inspection requests cut off at 11 p.m.

Who pulls it: the contractor of record, under their license. Our general and residential licenses matter here too, because when a leak has rotted fascia, soffit or wall sheathing the same permit can cover the carpentry under the right license class.

Lake County Office of Building Services, 315 W Main St, Tavares, FL 32778, (352) 343-9653. This is the office for Four Corners, all of 34714 and the county pockets of 34711 and 34715.

• Portal. The county's online permit portal at lakecountyfl.gov. Residential re-roof permits are auto-issued online to registered contractors, which keeps a rental turnover window or a storm repair short. The portal also shows permit history by address and by contractor.
• Sheathing re-nail. On detached single-family homes built before March 1, 2002, the roof sheathing must be re-nailed with 8d nails at six inches on center during the re-roof. In our service area that covers Greater Hills, Kings Ridge, the early Weston Hills streets, Louisa Pointe and Hills of Clermont when the parcel is county, and the older Four Corners houses. It is a code step, not an upgrade, and we photograph the nailing pattern with a ruler in the frame.
• Progress photographs with a ruler are required for the inspector: sheathing fastening, underlayment, drip edge, flashing.
• Affidavit. A notarized re-roof affidavit is filed at final.
• Final inspection closes the permit; the closed permit is what a buyer's inspector and an insurer look for.

Four Corners straddles four counties. Only the Lake County portion is in our service area; a 34714 address in the Polk, Orange or Osceola portion permits through that county, and we say so rather than guess at another county's process. The Four Corners roofing guide covers the rest of the 34714 specifics.

Not always, and the honest answer is "it depends on the scope," so here is how we decide.

• No permit, typically: a pipe boot, a flashing repair, a handful of shingles or tiles replaced like for like, sealing a vent, a fascia board. Ordinary maintenance.
• Permit required: any replacement of roof decking, any repair large enough to count under the 25 percent rule on a roof permitted before March 1, 2009, a re-lay of tile over new underlayment, any structural repair, and every full replacement.
• The gray middle: a large storm patch on one slope, a valley rebuilt with new metal and underlayment, or a repair that uncovers decking. We call the office that covers the parcel and ask, and we tell you what they said.

Two reasons to lean toward permitting a borderline repair. First, the permit record becomes the roof's history: it is what proves to a carrier or a buyer that the work was done to code. Second, an unpermitted repair that crossed the 25 percent line on a pre-2009 roof is a repair the inspector would not have passed, and it has to come back off when it is discovered. The roof repair in Clermont page explains how we measure a repair against a section.

Florida's construction lien law (Florida Statute 713.13) requires a Notice of Commencement to be recorded with the Lake County Clerk before the first inspection on any improvement over $5,000, which is every re-roof. Both permit offices will not schedule an inspection without the recorded notice on file.

The notice names the owner, the property, the contractor and the lender if there is one, and it starts the clock for lien rights. For a homeowner it does two useful things: it puts the contractor's name and license on a recorded public document tied to your parcel, and it is the document that tells you who is legally the contractor on your roof. If a roofer tells you a Notice of Commencement is unnecessary on a $14,000 roof, they are either unfamiliar with the process or planning not to pull the permit.

We prepare and record it as part of every replacement, before the first inspection is called in, and the recorded copy goes in your file with the permit.

A residential re-roof in either office has, in practice, two inspection points, and most of what the inspector checks has to be photographed as it happens because it is covered an hour later.

1. In-progress (dry-in). Sheathing condition and fastening, including the re-nail on pre-2002 homes; the secondary water barrier or underlayment system Florida Statute 553.844 requires on every replacement; drip edge at eaves and rakes; starter course; valley metal or membrane; flashing at walls, chimneys and penetrations. On a Clermont single-story this stage is reached and photographed the same day as tear-off, because a summer afternoon storm does not wait for an inspector.
2. Final. The finished roof, the notarized affidavit, the photograph set, product approval numbers matched to what is on the roof, and the closed-out Notice of Commencement. The inspector signs off and the permit is closed.

Both offices rely heavily on the photograph set, which is why we shoot every stage with a ruler in frame: sheathing nails, underlayment laps, drip edge, starter, each flashing. Those photographs go to you with the warranty documents, and they are the record a buyer's inspector or an insurance inspector will want years later.

• Issuance. The City of Clermont issues re-roof permits over the counter through eTRAKiT to registered contractors; Lake County auto-issues residential re-roofs online. In both, the slow steps are usually upstream: the HOA committee (see the HOA roof approval guide) and the material order.
• Application expiry. Under the Florida Building Code (section 105.3.2), an application expires if the permit is not issued within 180 days.
• Permit expiry. An issued permit becomes invalid if work has not started within 180 days, or is suspended or abandoned for 180 days (section 105.4.1). A roofer who pulls the permit and vanishes has left you with a clock running.
• Re-inspections. A failed inspection costs time and, in the city, $105. The usual causes are missing photographs, product approval numbers that do not match the installed product, and an affidavit that was not notarized.
• After a storm. Both offices are busier after a county-wide event like Milton in October 2024, and so are the notaries. Documenting the roof, tarping and filing the same week is how a storm roof stays on schedule.

Five documents, and a roofer who is doing it right has all of them.

1. The permit number, which you can look up yourself in eTRAKiT or the county portal, and the office it came from.
2. Whose license is on it. It should be the roofer's. An owner-builder permit under Florida Statute 489.103(7) makes you the contractor of record, responsible for the work, the workers and the code; a contractor who asks you to pull one for a roof they are installing is shifting their liability to you.
3. The recorded Notice of Commencement.
4. The product approval numbers on the estimate, matching the application and the material delivered.
5. The closed permit and the photograph set at the end, with the warranty documents.

If you are buying a Clermont house, run the address in both portals before closing. A roof with no permit record in either system was either never replaced or replaced without one, and both answers change the price. The how to choose a roofer guide has the rest of the public-record checks, and the free roof inspection in Clermont is where we pull the permit history for you as part of the report.