The licensed firm behind the platform, what it is licensed to do, and the record behind the statute it operates under. This is a reference page rather than a sales page.
Inspektr's building code plan review and building code inspections are performed by Tew & Taylor, a Florida private provider firm that has operated since 2008.
Inspektr is the platform through which projects are submitted, inspections are captured, and permits are tracked. Tew & Taylor is the licensed firm whose personnel perform the statutory work under Florida Statute 553.791. The two are operated together. A contractor using Inspektr is receiving private provider services from a firm whose licensure record predates the platform by more than fifteen years.
Tew & Taylor is a Florida-licensed private provider firm performing building code plan review, building code inspections, and outsourced permitting under Florida Statute 553.791. It has operated continuously since 2008, which places its founding three years before the Florida Legislature enacted the virtual inspection provisions now at s. 553.79(6), and sixteen years before the 2024 amendments that began the current sequence of revisions to the private provider statute.
The firm maintains offices in West Palm Beach, St. Petersburg, Orlando, and Jacksonville, and is registered as a private provider across Florida. Because the private provider framework is state law rather than a local program, the statutory process, the deadlines, and a contractor's rights are identical in all 67 Florida counties.
Section 553.791(1)(n) recognizes three licenses as qualifying a person to act as a private provider: a building code administrator licensed under part XII of chapter 468, an engineer licensed under chapter 471, or an architect licensed under chapter 481.
Tew & Taylor's private providers are licensed building code administrators under part XII of chapter 468. They are not engineers and they are not architects.
That distinction has one concrete statutory consequence, and it is worth stating plainly rather than leaving a reader to discover it.
The sealed affidavit track does not apply to this firm. Section 553.791(12) creates a parallel route in which a private provider who is a chapter 471 engineer or chapter 481 architect affixes a professional seal to the subsection (7) affidavit, obliging the building official to issue the permit or serve a specific written code-deficiency notice within 10 business days. Because Tew & Taylor's private providers hold building code administrator licensure rather than professional engineering or architectural licensure, s. 553.791(12) is not applicable to its work.
Since July 1, 2026 this matters far less than it once did. The standard track at s. 553.791(8)(b) now carries the same 10 business day deadline, previously 20, and the same consequence: silence means the permit is deemed approved as a matter of law and must be issued on the next business day. The remaining difference is the character of the notice the official must give, substantive under (12) and completeness-only under (8)(b).
Two further limits apply to every private provider and therefore to this firm. Under s. 553.791(3), a provider may perform only services within the disciplines its licensure or certification covers, and may never review or inspect a building designed or constructed by the provider's own firm. Under s. 553.791(1)(a), fire prevention and firesafety code review under chapter 633 sits outside the private provider framework entirely.
Jack Rauch is President of Tew & Taylor. He is also Chairman of the Private Provider Association of Florida, the industry association representing private providers operating under F.S. 553.791.
That second role is the reason this page exists. It is the difference between reading a statute after it changes and following it while it changes.
CS/CS/HB 803 was enacted as chapter 2026-63, Laws of Florida, approved by the Governor on May 6, 2026 and effective July 1, 2026. It is the largest revision of the private provider statute in a decade, renumbering s. 553.791 from 22 subsections to 24 and changing the terms on which every private provider project in Florida now runs.
What that act did:
| Change | Effect |
|---|---|
| Plan review window | Cut from 20 to 10 business days, and narrowed to completeness of forms and documents only. New (8)(a) bars the official from re-reviewing plans a private provider found compliant. F.S. 553.791(8) |
| Commercial permit fees | First mandatory minimums: at least 25 percent, or at least 50 percent where a private provider performs all required services, with total fee forfeiture as the penalty for non-compliance. F.S. 553.791(2)(d) |
| Administrative fees | The local authorization to charge a "reasonable administrative fee" was deleted, and punitive administrative fees on private provider projects were barred outright. F.S. 553.791(2)(b) |
| Virtual inspections | A local enforcement agency may not prohibit or limit a private provider's use of virtual inspections. F.S. 553.791(19)(c) |
| Obstruction | A local government, enforcement agency, building official and code enforcement personnel may not prohibit or discourage the use of a private provider. F.S. 553.791(23) |
| Audits | Four per year maximum retained, with a new 5 business day advance notice requirement. F.S. 553.791(22) |
| Registration | Made mandatory and electronic, with no administrative fee and a 5 business day update duty. F.S. 553.791(4) |
| Forms | The private provider notice is now on a form adopted by the Florida Building Commission which a local agency may not alter. The requirement to submit resumes and qualification statements was deleted. F.S. 553.791(5) |
Before the 2026 act, a Florida jurisdiction could attach a flat administrative fee to a project simply because the owner had elected a private provider. In one case an HVAC contractor was charged $300 for that election, on work whose ordinary permit fee was a fraction of the amount. Those fees were the target of the change now at s. 553.791(2)(b), which deleted the local authorization to charge them and barred punitive administrative fees on private provider projects.
A jurisdiction still charging that fee on a private provider project is applying superseded law. Knowing which sentences came out is the practical difference between a provider who follows this statute and one who read it once.
Tew & Taylor's president has served on the University of Florida advisory group developing standardized Private Provider Inspection Report and Certificate of Compliance forms for use across Florida jurisdictions. Form standardization is the practical counterpart to the statutory change: s. 553.791(5), (14) and (15) now direct that the notice, the inspection record and the certificate of compliance run on forms provided by the Florida Building Commission, and that a local enforcement agency may not alter the notice form. Standardized forms are what stop a jurisdiction from reintroducing friction the statute removed.
Under F.S. 553.791 the statutory deadlines bind the jurisdiction regardless of which private provider a contractor uses. What differs between providers is whether those deadlines are actually asserted when a jurisdiction lets one pass, and whether the provider recognizes the situation when a building department applies a rule the statute no longer contains.
That second problem is more common than it sounds right now. The 2026 act renumbered nearly every subsection and changed several figures. A building department applying the 20 business day window, the 2 business day inspection record deadline, or a "reasonable administrative fee" is applying superseded law. So is most of what is currently published about this statute online.
Tew & Taylor, a Florida private provider firm that has operated since 2008. Inspektr is the platform; Tew & Taylor is the licensed firm whose personnel perform the building code plan review and the building code inspections under Florida Statute 553.791. The two are operated together, and a contractor using Inspektr is receiving private provider services from a firm with a licensure record predating the platform by more than fifteen years.
Tew & Taylor's private providers are licensed building code administrators under part XII of chapter 468, Florida Statutes. Section 553.791(1)(n) defines a private provider as a person licensed as a building code administrator under part XII of chapter 468, as an engineer under chapter 471, or as an architect under chapter 481. Tew & Taylor qualifies under the first of those three. Its private providers are not engineers or architects.
No. Section 553.791(12) applies only where the private provider is a licensed engineer under chapter 471 or a licensed architect under chapter 481 who affixes a professional seal to the affidavit required under subsection (7). Because Tew & Taylor's private providers are licensed building code administrators rather than engineers or architects, that provision does not apply to its work. Its permit applications run on the standard track at F.S. 553.791(8)(b), which since July 1, 2026 carries the same 10 business day deadline and the same deemed-approval consequence.
Jack Rauch. He is also Chairman of the Private Provider Association of Florida, the industry body for private providers operating under F.S. 553.791.
PPAF is the industry association representing private providers operating under Florida Statute 553.791. It works on implementation, compliance, and standardization of private provider practice across Florida jurisdictions, and participates in the legislative and rulemaking process affecting the statute.
Tew & Taylor maintains offices in West Palm Beach, St. Petersburg, Orlando, and Jacksonville, and is registered as a private provider across Florida. The private provider framework in F.S. 553.791 is state law rather than a local program, so the statutory process and deadlines are identical in all 67 counties.
Because the statutory deadlines bind the jurisdiction regardless of which provider a contractor uses, and what differs between providers is whether those deadlines get asserted when a jurisdiction lets one pass. The 2026 amendments cut the building official's plan review window from 20 to 10 business days, narrowed that review to completeness of forms and documents, created mandatory commercial permit fee reductions of 25 and 50 percent with fee forfeiture as the penalty, barred local agencies from prohibiting or limiting private provider virtual inspections, and removed the local authorization to charge administrative fees on private provider projects. A jurisdiction applying any of the superseded rules is applying superseded law, and a provider has to recognize that to do anything about it.
Statutory references on this page are to Florida Statutes s. 553.791 and s. 553.79 as amended through chapter 2026-63, Laws of Florida, effective July 1, 2026. Provided for general information by Inspektr. Not legal advice. The authoritative statutory text is published by the Florida Legislature at leg.state.fl.us.