Approved hardware, and the paperwork behind it
The Florida Building Code defines the High Velocity Hurricane Zone as Miami-Dade and Broward counties. The framework was created after Hurricane Andrew in 1992 and it governs how things are attached to roofs here.
Mounting components used in the zone are expected to carry a Miami-Dade Notice of Acceptance or a statewide Florida Product Approval with High Velocity Hurricane Zone certification. A Florida Product Approval with HVHZ certification is accepted statewide including in Broward.
Ask which specific racking, clamps, flashing and fasteners are proposed and whether each carries a current approval, and ask for the approval numbers rather than a general assurance. Then ask the building department what your particular installation requires, including whether wind load calculations and an engineer's stamp are needed.
Keep every approval document and the permit records afterwards. On a coastal property that paperwork is part of the asset, and it is what a future buyer's insurer will want to see.
Talk to your insurer before installation
Ask your home insurer three things before work begins. Is a rooftop array covered under my policy, does it change my premium or my deductible, and what documentation do you want on file afterwards.
The deductible answer matters most, because wind and hurricane deductibles are frequently set as a percentage of insured value rather than as a flat amount. Understanding what you would actually pay after an event is part of understanding the purchase.
Provide the documentation promptly once the system is in. A claim years later is far simpler when the equipment, model numbers, approval references and installation date are already on record.
Do this before installation rather than after. It is a short call, the answers occasionally change a decision, and there is no version of the conversation that gets easier once a storm has happened.
What the system earns, and the annual true-up
Florida investor-owned utilities offer full retail net metering under Rule 25-6.065: excess solar is credited at the retail rate and rolled forward monthly, with an annual true-up at the utility's lower avoided-cost rate. Systems are generally sized to no more than 115 percent of annual usage.
The true-up is the part people miss. Monthly rollover at retail is genuinely favourable, but a surplus that survives to the end of the year is settled at a considerably lower rate, so building deliberately large to bank credit gives value away once a year.
Ask what percentage of your annual usage the proposed system covers, and ask how the annual true-up was treated in the savings projection. A model that carries surplus forward at the retail rate indefinitely is describing something that does not happen.
Confirm which utility serves your address, since Florida municipal electric utilities set their own net metering policies and credit rates and are not bound by the substantive parts of the rule.
Your association cannot say no, and what the federal change means
Florida Statute 163.04 provides that a deed restriction, covenant, declaration or similar binding agreement may not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting solar collectors or other renewable energy devices from being installed. A property owner may not be denied permission to install them by any entity granted the power to approve, forbid, control or direct alteration of property.
An association does retain one specific power. It may determine where on the roof solar collectors may be installed, within an orientation to the south or within 45 degrees east or west of due south, and only if that determination does not impair the effective operation of the collectors. So a proposed relocation that costs you meaningful production is worth challenging with a production model rather than an argument.
Follow the normal application process even so. Submitting layout, mounting method, panel and frame colour and conduit routing removes most of the uncertainty a committee is actually reacting to, and an application that arrives complete is approved far more often than one that arrives as a dispute.
On the federal side, the 30 percent Residential Clean Energy Credit under Section 25D expired for property placed in service after December 31, 2025, so a cash or loan purchase now receives no federal credit. Section 48E survives at 30 percent for third-party owners under leases and power purchase agreements, so ask any such provider what they claim and what of that value reaches you, and confirm with a tax advisor.