"The Homeowner Said They'd Pull the Permit"

Ask a room of Florida contractors about permits pulled by homeowners and you get the same story. The customer says they will handle the permit. The contractor, wanting the job and not wanting the argument, agrees. The work gets done. The permit was never pulled.

I ask the customers if they want me to pull the permits, 90% of the time they say they will pull the permits. 80% of those times the customer has not pulled the permit.

Then the enforcement question arrives, and the assumption that the homeowner carries the consequence turns out to be wrong.

Why the contractor carries it

The reasoning enforcement applies is straightforward: you are the licensed professional. You are presumed to know that the work required a permit, to know whether one had been issued, and to know that performing permitted work without a permit is a problem. The homeowner is presumed to know none of those things.

In practice that means exposure across several fronts at once: code enforcement action naming the licensed contractor, potential complaints against the license, unpermitted work that has to be resolved after the fact at somebody's cost, and civil exposure to a homeowner who later discovers the work is unpermitted when they try to sell.

Contractors in Florida forums routinely describe after-the-fact penalties as running around triple the standard permit fee. The multiplier is set by local ordinance and varies, but the direction is consistent: it is a multiple, not a surcharge.

Why homeowners genuinely do not pull them

• They intended to and did not get to it. Most common by far.
• They tried, found the process confusing, and quietly stopped.
• They were told at the counter that the contractor had to pull it, because the work required a licensed contractor.
• They wanted to avoid a reassessment or an inspection.
• They did not believe the work needed a permit.

Only one of those is bad faith. Which is worth remembering, because the fix is a process change, not a character judgment.

The policy that solves it

1. Pull the permit yourself, and price it into the job. This is what experienced contractors converge on. It removes the ambiguity entirely and puts control of the schedule in your hands.
2. Where the owner genuinely will pull it, make issuance a condition precedent. Written into the contract: no work begins until a copy of the issued permit is in your file. Not a promise, not an application receipt — the issued permit.
3. Verify it independently. Permit records are public. Checking takes minutes and is the difference between believing and knowing.
4. Document the conversation. If an owner declines a permit for work that requires one, put your position in writing and keep it. Then decide whether you want the job at all.
5. Walk away from the ones that will not permit. The customer who wants to skip the permit is frequently the same customer who will be difficult about payment and about the punch list.

If it has already happened

Do not wait for it to be discovered. The situation only gets worse with time — code cycles change, fines accrue if a case has opened, and a sale will surface it eventually anyway. The path is an after-the-fact permit: documenting what was built, obtaining any required engineering certification, filing, inspection and close-out. Eight to sixteen weeks is a realistic window, and it is far cheaper resolved voluntarily than resolved under a violation notice.

Who pays is a commercial conversation between you and the owner. Our experience is that owners are considerably more reasonable about it when it is raised proactively than when a code officer raises it for you.