Who's responsible for pulling permits?

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Cletis

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In your area. Ultimately, who's responsibility (legally) to make sure a permit is pulled? Residential or Commercial
 
In Ontario Canada, whoever is doing the work is responsible. A homeowner can pull a permit, but only if they are doing the work themselves. Outside of a homeowner, only a licensed contractor can get permits, and the permit holder has to be ding the work. They cannot get a permit, and have another contractor or anyone else do the work.
 
Cletis said:
In your area. Ultimately, who's responsibility (legally) to make sure a permit is pulled? Residential or Commercial
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I don't know what you actually mean by either "ultimately" or "responsibility".

The owner is always on the hook no matter who pulls the permit so ultimately it becomes his problem even if he cannot legally even get a permit himself.
 
In California from my recollection. The person doing the work , this really depends on the local AHJ.
In most Residential situations the GC can pull the permit for a complete project. Some AHJ make speacialty subs pull their own permits.

I am working in Oregon for a builder right now so I do not know the exact particulars, Electrical permits can be pulled by the EC or the Owner. People here in OR hate to pull permits.

Ultimately the person cannot do the work without a permit if it is required. So if you start work without a permit it is probably your problem. Nothing stops the owner from getting the permit.
 
Cletis said:
In your area. Ultimately, who's responsibility (legally) to make sure a permit is pulled? Residential or Commercial
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Ultimately you are responsible to know that a permit has been taken out on the job you work on. In many areas around here the builder gets all the permits but it is still your responsibility to make sure it was done.
 
Cletis said:
In your area. Ultimately, who's responsibility (legally) to make sure a permit is pulled? Residential or Commercial
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Here in MA a homeowner can pull an electrical permit and do the work himself for a single family only. (and only for his house)

If you are an electrician and doing the work yourself you must have a licence to pull a permit. You need to show proof of insurance or a permit will not be issued. There is an option on the permit where the owner of the property can waive the insurance requirement.

If you are an electrical contractor you need to have a masters when you pull a permit and you must provide general liability insurance along with workers comp.

A builder cannot pull an electrical permit.
 
In Ct., owner or owner's agent, literally "any person", may pull the permit. Owner would be ultimately liable. The licensed contractor signature on permits, 20-338b if I recall,, is not being enforced in favor of "any person", but I have not received the final say on that.
 
69gp said:
Here in MA a homeowner can pull an electrical permit and do the work himself for a single family only. (and only for his house)

If you are an electrician and doing the work yourself you must have a license to pull a permit. You need to show proof of insurance or a permit will not be issued. There is an option on the permit where the owner of the property can waive the insurance requirement.

If you are an electrical contractor you need to have a masters when you pull a permit and you must provide general liability insurance along with workers comp.

A builder cannot pull an electrical permit.
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This is a very good explanation but I'd like to expand on this a bit. As I understand the process (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), if the HO pulls and pays for the permit HE is assuming the responsibility for the work. Now, if he goes ahead and hires a licensed electrician to actually do the work (and technically speaking that electrician is not supposed to do the work even if it is his neighbor), while he will probably get a better installation than if he did the work himself, he still bears the responsibility for the work.

Now, let's assume something goes wrong on the job (i.e code violation, electrical fire, damage, etc.) that homeowner's only recourse would be to the electrician personally and not the electrical contractor's company. I wouldn't think that the contractor's insurance would not come into play seeing as how he did the work without a permit.
 
goldstar said:
This is a very good explanation but I'd like to expand on this a bit. As I understand the process (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), if the HO pulls and pays for the permit HE is assuming the responsibility for the work. Now, if he goes ahead and hires a licensed electrician to actually do the work (and technically speaking that electrician is not supposed to do the work even if it is his neighbor), while he will probably get a better installation than if he did the work himself, he still bears the responsibility for the work.

Now, let's assume something goes wrong on the job (i.e code violation, electrical fire, damage, etc.) that homeowner's only recourse would be to the electrician personally and not the electrical contractor's company. I wouldn't think that the contractor's insurance would not come into play seeing as how he did the work without a permit.
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My take on legal issues when owner files permit and somebody else does the work is that the installer is only relieved from penalties from the city, state whatever, and that the AHJ that issues the permit can very well testify that it is written in their laws that that installer did not need to file said permit (maybe). I'm not an attorney but say there is a life loss or major property damage and the wiring installation was determined the cause - that installer will at very least be dragged through civil suits whether he ends up paying any damages or not. I would hope this is at least some incentive to follow codes which could help your case quite a bit regardless of who was supposed to file the permit.

Getting a drivers permit makes it legal for you to drive on public roads, but you still can violate other laws of driving on public roads and they will not just let you off the hook because you had a proper driving permit. Kind of a similar analogy I think.
 
Here only EC's can pull permits, and some special permit holders like fire alarm installer license holders. The fire alarm installer can not make the supply connection to the FA system he installs, if he only has a FA installer license, and he can not do other wiring that is not a part of the FA.

Home owners are the only other people that can pull a permit - and it can only be for their primary residence. A vacation home is not their primary residence, must have a licensed contractor pull a permit when one is required. They have a form for owners to fill out to help verify that they meet the requirements to pull their own permit. If they lie and get through the permit process an inspector will still eventually want to see the installation and can still reject it if the owner/installer or whatever happened is not in compliance. Owners are not pulling permits because they want to do things right, they are pulling them when they find out the POCO will not energize the new service if there is no permit.

A few years back many owners were wiring their new homes and the inspectors were getting tired of being a wiring instructor for all these people doing their own work. They made a big change without even changing anything written in the laws to eliminate all these HO's wiring their own new homes simply by taking a hard look at things and determining that a new home is not the owner's primary residence until they move into it, so that means they can not wire it under the laws that were there all along. I'm sure there have been some challenges to this and some people have possibly "lived" in an unfinished home, but it still cut down a lot of unqualified installers from doing some work.
 
Understood. The point I was trying to make clear is that an electrical contractor has some protection through his company's liability insurance. Doing work without a permit may not afford him that same protection IMHO.
 
goldstar said:
Understood. The point I was trying to make clear is that an electrical contractor has some protection through his company's liability insurance. Doing work without a permit may not afford him that same protection IMHO.
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You also have to consider that not all work requires a permit - and just what work does require a permit can very a lot from one jurisdiction to another.
 
kwired said:
You also have to consider that not all work requires a permit - and just what work does require a permit can very a lot from one jurisdiction to another.
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if anyone is on the 2008 - 2014 nec "" any new wiring reguires a permit! Wether or not the local AHJ upholds the law is a different issues all together
 
Sierrasparky said:
if anyone is on the 2008 - 2014 nec "" any new wiring reguires a permit! Wether or not the local AHJ upholds the law is a different issues all together
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That totally depends on the rules of the jurisdiction, not the NEC. NEC doesn't address AHJ administrative rules in any way.

Permits, licensing and inspections are a part of AHJ operations and have nothing to do with NEC.
 
kwired said:
You also have to consider that not all work requires a permit - and just what work does require a permit can very a lot from one jurisdiction to another.
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If the any one of the 3 new NEC versions are adopted without modification then it is not supposed to vary. ALL NEW WIRING requires a permit. Wether it is enforced is another story.
 
Around here, I, being an electrical contractor am responsible to make sure that a permit has been issued. It can be applied for by myself, the HO, or the HO's agent. In many of the towns, when the GC pulls a permit the electrical and plumbing are included in the permit.

I never have the HO pull the permit....It's just easier for me to take care of it.

What does baffle me though...... many towns make me get an "owner consent form" filled out and signed by the HO...... I guess they used to have problems with contractors doing work without HO's being aware of it????:?
 
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