Fighting a Code Enforcement Fine

A Miami-Dade County Appellate Matter

Perez Mayoral, P.A. handled Shehata & Hryshankou v. City of Miami, an appellate matter in Miami-Dade County. Code enforcement cases are won or lost on the record, and that record gets built long before anyone reaches a courthouse.

Short-Term Rental Enforcement Has Grown Teeth

Municipalities across Miami-Dade County have spent years tightening short-term rental rules and the penalties behind them. Miami Beach, Surfside, and the city of Miami each run their own enforcement programs, with daily accruals that can turn a single citation into a substantial lien against a property.

Owners usually respond by arguing the merits at the hearing and then treating an adverse order as the end of the road. Both instincts cost them.

The Appeal Is Limited to the Record

Chapter 162 governs local code enforcement boards, and the route out is specific. A Florida Bar Journal analysis sets out the text of section 162.11, which provides that an aggrieved party may appeal a final administrative order of an enforcement board to the circuit court, that the appeal is not a hearing de novo but is limited to appellate review of the record created before the board, and that it must be filed within thirty days of execution of the order.

Two consequences follow from that. Evidence you did not present at the hearing is not available to you later. And thirty days is the entire window.

What the Reviewing Court Actually Asks

Record review is not a second chance to argue the facts. The court looks at whether the owner received procedural due process, whether the board observed the essential requirements of law, and whether the findings are supported by competent substantial evidence.

That third phrase does most of the work. Competent substantial evidence is generally understood to mean evidence a reasonable mind would accept as adequate to support the finding reached. It is not a high bar, but it is a real one, and inspector testimony resting on assumption rather than observation can fail it.

Building a Record That Survives Review

Because the appeal is confined to the record, the hearing is the case. A Miami appellate lawyer brought in early focuses on:

• Getting the notice, the citation, and the inspector’s file into the record
• Establishing what the inspector personally observed rather than inferred
• Introducing booking records, leases, or occupancy evidence at the hearing itself
• Preserving objections to hearsay and to unsworn testimony
• Making certain the hearing is transcribed or properly recorded
• Requesting written findings that identify the evidence relied on

A hearing with no transcript is very difficult to appeal, and owners tend to discover that after the deadline has already started running.

Due Process Arguments That Work

Notice defects are the most common opening. An order entered on a citation served at the wrong address, or a hearing held without adequate notice of what the owner was accused of, raises a procedural question the reviewing court can reach even where the underlying violation looks clear on its face.

A Miami appellate lawyer reading the record will usually check the notice chain before anything else, because a defect there does not require winning the factual dispute at all.

The Thirty Days Are Not Negotiable

The statute does not build in a motion for rehearing or reconsideration. The order is executed, the clock starts, and owners in Coral Gables, Doral, Hialeah, and North Miami who spend three weeks negotiating with a code compliance officer often arrive at counsel with a week left.

If a code enforcement order has been entered against your property, the date on that order is the first thing worth checking, and we can tell you quickly what the existing record will support.