Seawall Inspection & Repair in Delray Beach, FL

The rule sets the height for new walls and forbids owners of low walls from letting tidal water flow onto neighbors or public property. Whether your wall does that is a condition question, and so is what the buyer's lender wants: the diver cleans the growth off, inspects the wall, and documents its condition. That covers the disclosure conversation and the lender in one visit.

Tropic Isle walls hold 1950s dredged land in still canal water with heavy oyster cover; Intracoastal walls near the city marina and Delray Harbor Club take tide and wake. A crack lets sediment out from under a lawn or pool deck on every tide.

Delray's ordinance caps new walls at 5 feet or base flood elevation depending on location, above the 4.2-foot NAVD88 minimum, and the 2018 survey that found about 70% of walls below the minimum is why sellers now have to disclose the requirement. The Coastal Star reported the rule in February 2022. The disclosure is the seller's job; what follows it is the buyer's lender asking what shape the wall is in, and a Tropic Isle wall from the 1950s with seventy years of oysters on it can't answer that until the growth is off.

For a Delray seller the disclosure is the first step and the lender's question is the second, and the $250 inspection answers the second With about 70% of the city's walls below the 4.2-foot minimum in the 2018 survey, most sellers are disclosing a low wall; what the buyer then wants to know is whether it is a sound low wall or a cracked one. Raising the wall to the ordinance height is separate permitted work, and the inspection tells an owner honestly whether that conversation is coming.

Delray Beach seawalls face the Intracoastal Waterway. Tropic Isle, the Marina Historic District and the rest of ZIP codes 33444 and 33483: cleaned first, then inspected and documented.

The written report covers the wall's condition, which is what buyers, agents and many lenders want before closing on a waterfront home.

• Overall condition once the growth is off.
• Cracks letting sediment out from behind the wall: the cause of a sinking yard, deck or patio.
• Growth that was eating the wall or hiding damage.
• The recommended repair, with a free in-person quote.

How often a seawall should be looked at. Every 1–2 years, cleaned and inspected together, and after any named storm; seawalls get installed and forgotten until the yard loses sediment, and thick growth covers the crack that started it.

Full seawall inspection and repair guide