Liability for late Change of contractor

[gadfly56]

Differences in different jurisdictions.

Here the EC pulls permits, exception is for homeowners doing their own work at their own primary residence.

If owner or GC fires one EC and hires another one - the second one has to pull his own permit for whatever work he does. If work is 3/4 completed already second guy may not need to spend as much in fees as the first guy did, the inspector will work with you on seeing that you submit correct fees, at first they are more concerned whether you applied period, they then look to see if you applied for and paid the correct fees for the work that was done. If they feel you are short on fees you will get a notification of what is due, keep an unpaid balance for too long and it can effect validity of your license. If you applied for 30 branch circuits but installed 32 - they are not that picky and let that kind of thing slide.

If more then one EC works on a project they certainly can each pull a permit for the work that they do. One common example may be an EC pulls a permit for power and lighting work, but a fire alarm contractor pulls their own permit for the fire alarm system. Each has the scope of their work defined in the permit application.

In NJ the fire alarm contractor will have to pull a fire card AND and electrical card, unless someone else is pulling all the wire. At least in this area it's rare on large multi-discipline projects for the fire alarm contractor to pull his own card. In NJ, if you are a licensed EC you can pull a fire card for alarm. You may hire an authorized distributor to supply a proprietary panel and the devices, but it will all be under the EC's permits. Especially if there is an AIA contract and they are using the old CSI classification, the fire alarm work always seems to fall in the 16000 section which is all electrical related, although it should fall in 13000.

 

[Sierrasparky]

Here when I am notified that an EC is no longer the contractor of record I stop work until a change of contractor is applied for. The advantage of having the permit owned by the property owner is it cannot be used in a contractual dispute to prevent another contractor from completing the work. Also the property owner shares resposibility for the permit so if the contractor closes shop, runs off or passed away the owner must still see that inspections and finals are done.

That makes sense, however I do not think any AHJ will hold a project hostage regarding a permit where contractors are in dispute. I would never hold a job hostage like that. The person paying me will have to pay for the work done to date however.

The permit just needs to change contractor of record or a new one pulled if necessary. Nobody should be allowed to perform work under anothers permit that is not legitimately theirs to do.