# Unlicensed guy caught!!



## detroit687 (Sep 4, 2008)

Being licensed protects homeowners, home owners or in this case a condo board have no idea or should know anything about codes or building practices. In michigan any invoice over $599 does not and should not be payed to a unlicensed contractor. And basicly florida and MI have very similar license practices. 
And even if he is licensed its on him to pull or not to pull permits. Ill try to get out of pulling permits but if I get caught shame on me Im not going to renig on my contract or put the burden on the homeowner. But I have my residential builders license unlike hacks


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## Rob PA (Aug 30, 2010)

Once mold was found a, IA should of been called in for testing to determine the extent and possible danger. I dont bite the emergency repair stuff. If the window is leaking, board it over. Now if its broken out...there you go. 

If i find mold, thats the end of my work until they go thru the hoops. If you dont remidate it correctly its on you for covering it back up.

Depending on the area, permits may be required for doing ANY work. I think the only thing in my town that doesnt require a permit is painting. BUT i still call the inspector and ask


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## BC Carpenter (Dec 28, 2010)

yeah I wouldn't automatically assume to go get a permit for opening up a wall and possibly doing some minor rot repair, different area though. 

Personally I think permits do good the great majority of the time-proper fireblocking, structural issues, etc. 

However sometimes they are just a cashgrab.

I don't know about the mold. Here we have "leaky condos" which I worked on as an employee for five years or so, doing rot repair, etc. We dealt with mold (sometimes pretty nasty) everyday, didn't do any special "mold abatement" no guys in suits, etc.

This is in fully occupied buildings, for a large reputable general contractor. So I don't get too excited about a little bit of mold personally. I find it interesting the difference though between areas. These places some of them the box joists looked like they had been burnt they were so rotten, the plywood would crumble apart, the studs so rotten they would come out in pieces, drywall all black. We'd just replace the framing, insulation, vb, drywall, plywood, all with the tenant or HO living in the place. This is one of the many companies here that do this remediation work, standard practice.


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## CJA (Jan 26, 2011)

I think the main thing you’re PO’ed about is the fact that the contractor is making you pay for the permit and additional fees associated with it. The fact of the matter is, that building permits are solely for the protection of the client and therefore all liability for not obtaining one falls on the client. As a contractor we go through the process in getting a permit for the “client” as a courteously, NOT, as a requirement to our trade. Regardless to whether or not this contractor suspected it needed a permit pulled or not. 

Here a permit is required for anything done on a project other than painting a wall. I just did a job at the permit building repairing a door frame. I didn’t know exactly what it was going to take to get it fixed and figured I would end up having to take the door frame off to get it fixed. All I ended up having to do was run a few screws in the frame and mud over the screws in the wall and paint. My client paid $600 for the permit alone for that repair. I even spoke with the permit office prior to pulling it just to make sure they were really going to make me pull one for that. They said yes, but it would only be a repair permit and I wouldn’t have to go through all the zoning crap. Even when the inspector came to inspect the work done he couldn’t believe they made me pull a permit for that.


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## srwcontracting (Dec 11, 2009)

CJA said:


> I think the main thing you’re PO’ed about is the fact that the contractor is making you pay for the permit and additional fees associated with it. The fact of the matter is, that building permits are solely for the protection of the client and therefore all liability for not obtaining one falls on the client. As a contractor we go through the process in getting a permit for the “client” as a courteously, NOT, as a requirement to our trade. Regardless to whether or not this contractor suspected it needed a permit pulled or not.
> 
> Here a permit is required for anything done on a project other than painting a wall. I just did a job at the permit building repairing a door frame. I didn’t know exactly what it was going to take to get it fixed and figured I would end up having to take the door frame off to get it fixed. All I ended up having to do was run a few screws in the frame and mud over the screws in the wall and paint. My client paid $600 for the permit alone for that repair. I even spoke with the permit office prior to pulling it just to make sure they were really going to make me pull one for that. They said yes, but it would only be a repair permit and I wouldn’t have to go through all the zoning crap. Even when the inspector came to inspect the work done he couldn’t believe they made me pull a permit for that.


$600 bucks!!! That's crazy! I sure hope they don't start requiring permits like that here in pa.


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## CJA (Jan 26, 2011)

srwcontracting said:


> $600 bucks!!! That's crazy! I sure hope they don't start requiring permits like that here in pa.


Well, to be honest, I pay a outside source $350 to obtain my permits for me. $350 is cheaper than my personal time sitting at the permit office and I just charge it back to the customer.

And anytime you open a building permit you have to open a fire inspection permit here. And if you have to set off the alarms for the inspection it has to be done after hours which is a minimum $300 charge for the first visit. If you F it up and they have to come back and re-inspect.... another $300.


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## Flacan (Aug 28, 2007)

*Mold*

Just a little tid-bit about mold, which I learned in the field of real estate appraisal. This is advice which I received from a lawyer buddy, as I was preparing for court as an expert witness:

Unless you know for a fact it is mold, don't assume that it is...don't call it mold...call it something else. Try for example, a substance which has the appearance of, but which may or may not be mold........ And unless you are a mold expert, don't try to pretend you are one. Leave that to the experts.


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## olligator (Nov 23, 2007)

*I support DBBII's position on this one*

As a fellow licensed, insured, and 100% legal Florida general contractor, I must emphatically agree with DBBII's attitude on this one. 

Each condo association is required to carry insurance on the property, and that insurance policy and/or potential claims against that policy are now in jeopardy by going outside the standard operating procedure for this repair. In the sunshine state, insurance is very expensive (and getting more expensive each year) and god forbid you get dropped, you get to pay a heckofa lot more to get a new policy from another provider. Maybe that's not a big deal if your HO policy is $3k/yr., but it can be when a small association's policy might start at $50k/yr.

Each condo association is supposed to keep a substantial contingency fund to deal with major issues, such as replacing the roof, etc. Unfortunately, most associations have run out their funds either through non-payment of HOA fees by delinquent owners, or by poor management by the condo commandos/associations. Once that fund is depleted, all unit owners get assessments whenever the association has to spend major cash. Imagine if one of the unit owners where this wall was opened up now has respiratory issues. Who do you think is going to be liable? The association, of course. Which means that everyone else pays for the HOA president's mistake via assessments. This is much more important to a smaller association that doesn't have 1,800 units to collect HOA fees from.

I understand that people aren't going to pull a permit to repair an interior door or patch some drywall (common sense people), but this is a situation where the permitting procedure has to be followed to the 'T' to legally protect all parties involved. Particularly since someone discovered the dreaded 'M' word. Particularly since we're talking about much more than a 2x2 drywall repair. Yeah, the government wants some of the vig, and yeah it's not always fair, but the potential consequences of not playing by the rules in this case are not worth the risk.

Although I don't know the entire situation, I suspect the "contractor" in question here is some handyman buddy of the association president that only buys permits from a licensed guy when he needs to, if that. This kind of garbage happens all the time down here, and being penny wise and dollar foolish is only going to hurt all the residents in the end. DBBII, go for the jugular on this guy- there's way too much liability on the association here.


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## Willie T (Jan 29, 2009)

Florida is getting to be more and more fun, at least around our area. They are requiring more permits drawn for minor things.... YET, at the same time, many of those permits require no inspection, whatsoever.

Can anyone spell "GREED"?


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## dsconstructs (Jul 20, 2010)

Flacan said:


> Just a little tid-bit about mold, which I learned in the field of real estate appraisal. This is advice which I received from a lawyer buddy, as I was preparing for court as an expert witness:
> 
> Unless you know for a fact it is mold, don't assume that it is...don't call it mold...call it something else. Try for example, a substance which has the appearance of, but which may or may not be mold........ And unless you are a mold expert, don't try to pretend you are one. Leave that to the experts.


Yep, there are a lot of strains of molds and mildews. The majority of what is found are mildews. There can be scary liability issues when it's referred to as mold due to the toxic stuff that is out there. Typically inspectors will refer to it as discoloration and/or water damage. I was buying an investment property one time where the appraiser went in and called out some stuff on the master bath ceiling as mold. It nearly killed the sale and we had another appraiser come in instead and got the sale through. I didn't care as I knew I was gutting that bathroom anyway, and replacing the leaking roof that was the cause of the "water damaged sheetrock"
I've done some "mold" abatement work involving having the certified guys come in and test before and after, negative air equipment etc. and not once did anything come back as anything other than common strains of mildew/non-toxic on these jobs. Some of this stuff looked really nasty too. This was in a large apt. complex with the abs that was defective, drains would crack inside the walls and leak from the upstairs as it traveled through the downstairs units. But considering there was some toxic stuff being found in other areas of town....such as a nearby school, the courthouse.....everyone was taking all precautions just in case. Tenants were relocated during the repairs.


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