ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade Business Related Discussion GC and HO calling for inspection on your permit?

What are the rules and how do you deal with HomeOwners or General Contractors calling for an inspection on your permit?

I have had this happen twice and feel its a liability.

For example this last time, I was holding out on calling in the final inspection until a progress payment was made. The HO\GC called it in and had the job inspected.

I called the city inquiring about this and how I can prevent it in the future. (I already keep permit #s to myself). I was informed that its not up to them and they had an 'interpretation' sent from the State saying HO can call in inspections. I asked for a reference number for this 'Interpretation' and was told one is not available as the number always changes when the 'Interps' come out.

This is in Michigan and the only info I can find that is in the realm of this is; 80.19 through 80.19.8
Electrical Code Rules

The worse case scenario that I can imagine is; A Plumber or Electrician does the rough. HO\GC completes the finish calls for an inspection, and passes. A week later the place floods or catches on fire. Insurance company sues the living hell out of Plumber or Electrician. Plumber or Electrician loses his business, house, wife, kids, dog and dies a slow early death. ... worse case scenario.

Probably not the right thing, nor is it the state's or cities responsibility to protect, but I will use inspections as a pawn. No payment.., no work, no inspections.

Discuss?

OK, from the AHJ side of the fence, I offer...

My office has four (4) clerks that answer phones, schedule inspections, process paper, etc. That said, they have no clue who is on the other end of the phone.

We (AHJs) prefer that the responsible trade contractor (EC/PC/etc) call & schedule the inspections; but...we also have no clue, unless the contractor happens to call us with a question. We (AHJs) are not permitted to do any scheduling.

My Twp does approx 4500 permits a year. Phone calls are endless from <7:00AM till 4:30PM.

In a perfect world, the responsible trade contractor would make the calls, pass the inspections, and get his payments. However...this is not a perfect world!!

As to having a 'rule' of who should call in the inspection, even IF there is one within our UCC, I cannot see how it could be enforced.

War stories? ECs that get burned?? Permit Apps that the EC has no clue about?? I have many.

Heck, I thought about writing a book, but who would believe it?

Dead Rat?

Leave an egregious violation that takes two minutes to fix until you are ready.

Write your deals so that you've gotten enough $$$$ out of the buyer BEFORE some easy ( for the EC only ) CRITICAL installation is complete.

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However, you should build up your working capital so that such snags don't do you in... because they're sure to be in your future.

If a SINGLE house contract payment is THAT critical -- you're already hanging by a thread.

BTW, you're being cagy WRT who called in the inspector. We're ALL going to assume it was your true customer: the GC.

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Folks, sub-contracting is the route to insolvency.

GCs are going to sandbag you for their own mistakes -- believe it.

Tight bids must bypass the General -- You need to be co-prime if it's got to be that cheap.

Realistically, the current market is going to destroy most of the GCs and ECs.

Out my way, they're both dying like flies.

One need only look at the 'tools for sale' on CraigsList...

We are actually starting to see the new construction business bouncing up off the bottom here. My concrete contractor buddy is saying he wishes his labor would come back from Mexico. The ECs I know have been scratching out a living in service work and renovations and some say they like it better than new construction. They avoid the "sleazy GC" problems Tesla was talking about.

We try very hard to only take inspection requests from the permit holder as it has important legal implications. IE the contractor is always responsible in law so by taking a request from a 3rd party could void the contractors responsibility in court.
That said we don't take phone requests. Only in person, by mail or by fax. We will accept scanned and emailed requests but don't garantee response if they send the email to someone on vacation.