Ensuring Electronic Signature Lawfulness for Property Inspection Report in Mexico

How to eSign a document: electronic signature lawfulness for Property Inspection Report in Mexico

one of the most common questions we get from property owners is how to file for a building permit obviously if you're doing any kind of substantial remodeling addition even things like fences and decks sometimes require a building permit so if you agree or not with whether you should have to do a building permit or not most jurisdictions require that building permits are pulled from any types of work on a property so we're going to talk about when a burn building permit is required when it may not be required and when you as a homeowner property owner may have some allowances to do some of the work yourself and maybe not have as much threshold for what the permit requirements are we're going to use an example from a county in oregon although this is very similar to most counties most counties use national building code guidelines as the origin of their permit requirements so in this county they give you a list of all of the different permit applications instructions and even fill in the blank forms so one of the things you'll find is as a homeowner you can sometimes apply for a homeowner's permit which is different from a contractor permit and they have a separate form for that process it's information to owners about construction responsibilities and in this case it says homeowners acting as their own general contractors to construct a new home or make substantial improvements can prevent many problems by being aware of the following responsibilities so this is an important thing if you are using labor provided by workers that are not ccb contractors meaning they're not licensed you may be considered an employer and you might need to abide by certain things you might need to withhold taxes you might need to have ui insurance you also probably need to have workers comp and here's an important thing if you're a homeowner and you're pulling a permit and then you pay somebody to do some of the labor even building a deck and that person is injured on your property if you do not have workers comp insurance you may not have any coverage for that injury to the person so look we're not attorneys we're not giving you legal advice make sure you get good consultation on this because you don't wanna build a three thousand dollar deck hire somebody for a couple hundred bucks to mail some you know some lumber together they get hurt and you end up losing fifty thousand dollars on an injury claim that you have no insurance for and you have to write a check out of your pocket so make sure that you know what you're getting into if you're hiring other laborers to do work on your property other important things other responsibilities is code compliance as a permit holder for a construction project the homeowner is responsible for making sure that you're complying with the codes in your jurisdiction whether it's city or county and if you have an issue where you don't meet code for some reason you have to resolve that after the inspection discovers a problem also make sure that you have your own homeowners insurance notified that you're doing work because first of all your property is going to improve in value so you want to have additional coverage for that and also there may be some activities such as storage of materials maybe demolition that wouldn't be covered under your standard hoa policy or your homeowner's policy ho3 policy and you want to make sure that you coordinate with your insurance agent to get the right kind of coverage for that activity last but not least they say expertise homeowners should make sure they have the skills to act as their own contractor and to coordinate the work of the trades that's the hardest part of being your own general contractor hardest part of even being a general contractor is coordinating the different trades that are working on a project to make sure they show up at the right time that they come in the right order you know you don't want the electricians to come after the sheetrockers that kind of thing so oregon law requires residential construction permit applications who are not licensed to sign the statement before a building permit can be pulled so they'll give you an exemption for some of the requirements but you have to sign saying that you re you understand that i own a residence that i reside in or that i will plan to reside in if i hire subcontractors i will hire only subcontractors licensed by the ccb so that is an important factor they basically want to put you on notice that this is what you need to do to be your own contractor so as you're doing the work you're going to need to know when you will have to have inspections done you can't just build an addition on a house and then call the inspector afterwards and say hey can come inspect it is it okay they have to do intermittent inspections to make sure that work or construction or even remodeling that's done that's not visible is inspected before it gets covered up first of all are there setback and zoning requirements making sure that your property lines are a certain distance from any addition most cities counties and even states have requirements that you can't build right up to the property line there are some zero lot line properties but your particular survey will show where you can build and where you can't build that has to be done before any concrete is poured foundation wall and rebar if you're pouring a foundation before you pour the concrete they have to make sure that the rebar are installed prior to placing concrete the inspection has to come in and look to see that the rebar is in there because if you pour the concrete there's no way for them to tell how the rebar is structured inside that pore the main thing is to make sure that you don't cover anything up that needs inspection before the inspection is signed off on because you might have to tear something out for example if there's any under floor plumbing or electrical so if you have water pipes electrical wires hvac even duct work if it's under the floor once you put down all the flooring the inspection can't be done you have to rip up all the flooring to get it inspected even things like framing that's under floor if you are on a slab on grade obviously there's not going to be much underneath that but if you're on piers or if you're on a knee well foundation you may have some framing underneath there even piers that have to be inspected before they're covered up with your subfloor so make sure that you schedule all of your inspections around when that work is going to be done obviously once you get into the specific trades those all have to be inspected plumbing um mechanicals you know ducts and vents electrical once you get the meter base in that has to be inspected and then the service entrance conductors where it connects to your primary disconnect usually your breaker box that has to be inspected prior to the next stage of conductors and devices being put in and that's part of your rough electrical make sure the service is in all your device boxes are in and you may have to have nailing blocks on all your stud walls you have to have your circuits and conductors run so the inspector can see first of all that they're the proper installation the proper gauge conductors also even when you drill through your stud walls there are certain requirements on how far back that drill hole has to be from each side of the stud you have to maintain a certain distance so the meat of that stud is still there and then you have your framing you know they're going to be looking at all your blocking to make sure that the the type of framing matches the engineered designs and that the fasteners are all put in at the proper intervals and then as you start getting dried in they're going to be looking at the insulation your interior shear wall so that your sheetrock is inspected to for the number of fasteners how it's installed how it goes around all your electrical and plumbing and they want to look at that before you start mudding and taping so if you're building a new home or an addition you need a site plan and the site plan is basically a drawing and they give you a little grid to put it on that you show all the property lines and dimensions and also where the addition or the construction is going to go they want to see your setbacks from the property lines they want to see your setbacks from septic systems or drain fields they want to make sure that it doesn't interfere with any existing underground utilities and they give you a checklist of what to put on there first of all you have to have a north arrow so they know which direction it is property lines and dimensions any driveway roads internal roads and parking also if you have a curb cut you may need to get permission from the the street district because the road division wants to know about any cuts in their curb any accesses to the road usually it's not going to be a problem but if there is a high traveled road or if it's in a neighborhood they want to know where the curb cuts are so it doesn't interfere with traffic flow with drainage you might need a culvert you also want to make sure you do call before you dig so you're not digging up electric lines or sewer or water or even internet phone cable access next is you want to draw out the proposed structures so you want to see where these new additions are going to be related to existing structures make sure you also know about easements most properties have a utility easement on the property that means where the utility company is allowed to place their connections to your home and other homes may be in the neighborhood usually it's a five foot wide little pathway on your property you won't be able to see anything by looking at your property but your deed and your covenants on your property will show where that easement is you want to make sure that you don't build on top of an easement you don't put anything that's crucial on top of an easement because the utility company who has that easement is allowed to go there and access it and dig it up if they need to so you want to make sure that you're not interfering with any existing easements also geographic features is there a big slope are there escarpments which is like a drop off are there any water features streams ponds or other drainage because what you don't want to do is if you have a slight slope even if there's a little bit of a of a draw on your slope you may you may not be aware of this but all the water may funnel through one area of your property as it migrates from one part of your property to another or even off your property if you build and block that slight draw even if you can't see it visually now you're gonna have water pooling and it might divert somewhere else that can cause more damage if you're gonna put up any fences or have any retaining walls you can need to know where those are most counties have restrictions on fence height and if there's a retaining wall that's above a certain number of inches or feet you might have to have engineering you know if you're building a small little six inch retaining wall to hold back some mulch or chips that's usually okay once you start building two or three foot retaining walls you might need to have engineering give you plans on how to secure that wall you might have to have drainage behind it you might not have to have weep holes so that the wall doesn't just come crashing down you also want to make sure that your roof gutters and drains don't just pour right behind the retaining wall because at some point that's going to fail are there any um property line adjustments or partitioning where you're separating out a property or adding from another property here's your stormwater show where the stormwater is going to go and once you fill all that in you're gonna need to put all your information they know who to contact now here's your actual permit application usually it's two or three pages this one is pretty straightforward that's why we selected it so you can get an idea of what all the details are first your ignore this part this is where the city checks off things and uh make sure that everything's okay on their end you need to start filling in with what's required from the applicant category of construction residential government commercial fortunately most of these are fill in the blank pdf forms is there a septic tank or system on the property is there well on the property what's the address you want to use the 911 address property owner normally that would be you if it's not if you're a contractor you want to put the property owner ccb form for homeowner we already looked at that if there's a contractor their information goes here then you're gonna put in the fees what is the valuation right because the fees are based on the valuation if you're building up to two thousand dollars in value it's 60 bucks as you go up it's dollars per thousand and this can add up to be hundreds of dollars in fees you want to make sure you do it correctly if there's certain other triggers met you have to do a safety plan different type of occupancies if it's over 4 000 square feet more than 20 feet in height if it has a basement also if you are building something that has different uses day care centers for example have different permits then you have review fees re-inspections are 52 plan review fees miscellaneous fees for seismic or septic or zoning they're all connect fees you add them all together and you pay that fee with your application they will then give you a permit scheduling request form and you can request permit inspections anytime that the work is done to when a permit is triggered and here's a good table that says who can do the work if the applicant is the owner and you're not trying to sell it immediately can you do structural work yes can you do mechanical work yes can you do plumbing work yes can you do electrical work yes so if you are the applicant and you own the property and you're not trying to sell it or lease it you can do all these types of activities even plumbing or electrical with electrical you have to be a person not a corporation so if your property is owned by you know xyz llc you can't do your own work you have to actually hire an electrician but all the other things you can do yourself now that doesn't mean that it can fail inspection you still have to perform these activities up to the standards for electrician that's nec national electric code plumbing mechanical structural all have their own requirements but as the applicant if you're the owner you can do all the work on the property yourself as long as you meet codes and if you notice down below if the applicant is not the owner or if it's a licensed contractor you can't do all these things right there's a lot of no's on here the references to the codes you have to follow is on the bottom this one is you know oregon codes and it gives you all the numbers to look up what you need to do for electrical this one is for plumbing your state is going to have the same type of restrictions but also allowances most states and counties have homeowner permit allowances so you can do a lot of work yourself as long as you're not trying to work on other people's houses or a house that um you're selling to somebody else or building for resale and here is an example of how the electrical permit application works same information scope of work category of construction who's the contractor and then here is your fee in your plan review the fee for 1000 square feet or less is 139 every additional 500 square feet it adds 26 bucks um how many amps service you know anywhere from 80 to 500 bucks if you have um three phase are there any sub-panels are there any outside circuits for things like pumps or outside lighting the fees are pretty self-explanatory add them up you pay that and the same thing then you'll schedule your inspections now here's the key if during any part of this construction you need to change anything make sure that you submit a revision if the plans are already approved and your permits already pulled a lot of times you need to change something maybe you need to move a wall maybe you need to add electrical circuits whatever it is you want to make sure that that revision is documented because if it's not when they come to do an inspection and something is different it can throw the whole thing out of whack and your inspection schedule be off you might have to get back your subcontractors you might have to remove some work that's done you want to get revisions documented in advance don't try to sweep it under the rug because it won't work hopefully that gives you a good overview very basic of how permits and inspections work how to apply for building permits check out our website securebuilders.com put your comments below let us know what you've experienced with these permit processes and if you have any questions