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Permits ignored. Re-do costs $$$. Whose fault?

whatever419 | Posted in Energy, Heating & Insulation on June 1, 2011 07:15am

The situation:
A condo HOA Board tells its management company to hire a contractor to do alter the four 1,000 sq ft vented crawlspaces in their 20 year old 8-unit building. They want them cleaned up and converted to conditioned crawls with conditioned air supplied from the 4 HVACs in the first floor units. The 4 crawls, running west to east, are linked in pairs with no firewall or door between them. One pair is accessed by a door on the west, the other pair by a door on the east. The contractor is hired and proceeds with the work.

The crew removes and dumps the fiberglass insulation from between the joists in all the crawls. A vapor barrier is installed and clean-up work performed. The work has proceeded without a permit, but stops when it is determined that a permit was necessary and that fire barrier issues will have to be resolved. The HOA finds that the costs of installing the required fire protection equipment would be too costly and instruct the crew to restore the crawls to their as-built vented state. The crew buys and installs new fiberglass insulation to replace that thrown away. The final bill is substantially more that the original estimate.

The questions:
Whose responsibility was it to determine if permits and inspections were needed?
What would be a fair and equitable resolution regarding the extra costs incurred by the ignorance of the regulations?

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Replies

  1. DanH | Jun 01, 2011 08:24pm | #1

    Surely there was a written contract, and it was copied from a standard construction contract.  This should have contained a clause stating who was responsible for permits.

    And for any contract over a few thousand dollars the HOA board or management company should retain a lawyer to review contracts.

    Read the contract.  If there is no clause stating who is responsible, whoever signed the contract is at least morally culpable (and if an attorney was retained he is probably on the hook).  If there is no contract then you're dealing with a bunch of idiots.

  2. TLE | Jun 01, 2011 08:36pm | #2

    Who thought a permit wasn't needed?

    Both the management company and the contractor should have known whether a permit was needed.

    If there was any fine or penalty for doing unpermited work, the contractor should be the one to pay that.

    BUT, if the contractor did the work according to his proposal, along with the changes to return it to original condition, I feel he should be paid for his work (less any permit penalties). Basicaly, he did what he said he would.

    Terry

    1. davidmeiland | Jun 01, 2011 08:44pm | #3

      It could be the HOA's fault

      Maybe they hired someone and told them to do the work. Contractor can assume they got the permit. The HOA probably didn't mention permits in their procurement, otherwise the contractor would have gotten them.

  3. calvin | Jun 01, 2011 09:45pm | #4

    Is this the continuing story of a question asked a while back?

    I'm thinking I'm remembering this topic brought up here a few months ago.  At that time, questions were asked by the board regarding the design.  Was this not brought up in a timely manner with the contractor?

    It seems to me that if I'm remembering this correctly, that this process screamed permit from the get go.  I also know from dealing with a homowner association, that all the blame might not be directed to the contractor.  It would seem that whomsoever is in charge of the hiring process of this association should look hard to not assume some blame in the matter.

    8 unit bldg, 8 bosses or a combination of those that want the job and those that don't.

    1. User avater
      whatever419 | Jun 02, 2011 08:33am | #5

      You have a good memory. Yes, I brought this up as it unfolded. The earlier questions are at -

      http://forums.finehomebuilding.com/breaktime/energy-heating-insulation/condo-conditioned-crawlspaces-ventilation

      Our HOA has 4 buildings, total of 32 members. Early on the manager, after the insulation had been dumped, responded to questions I had been asking writing that a permit wasn't necessary, "The conditioning of the crawlspace should have no bearing on the fire separation as the structure is not being changed.  The building would have been built to the code for this type of thing when it was built." Later, a county building inspector, whose input I sought, said that a permit was needed to "change the use" of the crawlspace to conditioned. He also pointed out the fire separation issues.

      Obviously, the manager was wrong, but somewhere in all of this, I was told that the contractor would be the one responsible for knowing if this type of job required a permit.

      Thanks.

      1. davidmeiland | Jun 02, 2011 10:07am | #6

        Let's look REAL HARD

         I was told that the contractor would be the one responsible for knowing if this type of job required a permit.

        at that statement right there. You were told. By whom? Is this being represented as "likely", because the contractor after all is the professional, or is it somehow part of law? 

        If you approached me with this job, I would know it needed a permit. But I would not know if you had gotten one, especially if you had a consultant on board to deal with scoping the project and maybe even running it. Some folks like to get their own permits to avoid paying the contractor to do it. The one similar entity to this that I deal with, they know how to pull their own and they do it. One guy on the board is a retired bureaucrat and he can still push a mean piece of paper.

        1. [email protected] | Jun 02, 2011 03:53pm | #7

          Who pulls permits is juridiction dependant

          I have lived in locations where teh only person who could pull a permit was a licensed contractor, but the property owner could if they self certified as the contractor, which was discouraged, and required taht they take a quick test on the legal issues of beign a self contractor. 

          I am now living in an area where if you go in to pull a permit, to do work on your own home, the folks at the permit counter seem shocked.  But Contractors are required to verify that proper permits have been pulled. 

          In general contract law the person who offers the contract is responsible for the effects of any vagarities or ommisions from the contract.  So, if the HOA offered the contract tot he contractor, and it was silent on requiring permits, then the HOA is responsible unless there are statutory requirements that the Contractor pull permits. 

          My old HOA board took it upon themselves to relamp two City owned street lights to make them brighter, paint 300-feet of curb red, and install No Parking and Stop signs.  

          Then we all had to pay to have all of the work undone. 

        2. User avater
          whatever419 | Jun 02, 2011 10:15pm | #8

          Permit muddle

          The Board at the time essentially wanted the Manager to take care of everything. At the one meeting I had with them and the Manager, they were clearly clueless about conditioned crawls, while the Manager said nothing when I pointed out that going ahead with conditioning two joined crawls with no fire barrier between them - and without having sought the unit owners' permission could get them in big trouble if there was a fire.

          Anyway, the inspector never mentioned who might get the permit - he was mostly trying to help me fathom the options available re completing the job. But since the Manager was clearly wrong about the permits, it seemed to me she bears some responsibility, while the contractors should have looked at the connected crawls and known that there might be fire safety issues. They may have had very little experience and what they had probably was on single family homes. The inspector said most construction in the county is on slab, so they don't see many crawl conditioning jobs come by.

          Thanks to all,

          Frank

          1. DanH | Jun 02, 2011 10:33pm | #9

            Once again, have you read the contract???

          2. calvin | Jun 02, 2011 10:37pm | #10

            Seems there's plenty of fault to pass around.

            The manager hired the wrong company.

            And everyone should know you are going to be bringing things up to the latest firecodes if nothing else, regarding connected units.

            What's the attic space look like in these buildings?

          3. User avater
            whatever419 | Jun 03, 2011 08:49am | #11

            HOA Board plays close to vest in this Mystery

            I have asked to see the contract, but the Directors have a history with me of disregarding some questions and answering others. I suspect there was no contract - just the original line item proposal. The original estimate was $5,000. The add-on I have just discovered is $7,000. I have asked to see a breakdown of this add-on, but I suspect none exists (or if it does, it will be very cryptic).

            The work performed for the extra $7,000:

            Purchase and install R-19 Kraft-Faced Fiber Glass (at local Menards: Batts, 15" Coverage: 87.19 Sq Ft Sku: 1617707 Model: 910985 $33.79)

            My math: for apprx 1,000 sq ft = $375x4 = apprx $1,600 + apprx 25% installer markup of $400 = $2,000 (+ cost of staples?)

            A crew of 3-4 workers arrived one morning, stapled this stuff in place under 2 units and were gone before 3PM. That is maybe 7 hours if they didn't eat lunch. I doubt if they get $20 per hour, but lets say that is the average wage: 7x4=28x20=$460x the other two crawls = $920. Lets make that $1,000 labor + $2,000 fiberglass = $3,000 (not $7,000). I am open to hearing what I might have missed.

            They are now claiming that the extra cost is not for replacing insulation they had foolishly dumped, but because they found mold and had to dump it. Since November there has been a a steady stream of emails between me and the Board (actually, the Manager who is passing incoming emails to the Board) and this is the first time I have heard of this. It is tedious trying to get information, so I don't know what the next exciting chapter will reveal, but if this present story holds any water (no pun intended) at all, one must wonder what steps they took to address the cause of the mold and ask why they didn't alert the first floor occupants who have an open vent to the crawlspace in their mechanicals closet (which opens to their dining room).

            Re latest firecodes: The buildings inspector said that if what they chose to do in the end was "maintennance," then it only had to comply with the codes that were in effect when the structure went up. eg: If they were replacing foam insulation on the exterior walls, a fire barrier would not be required.

            I have no idea what the attic looks like. Why do you ask?

          4. calvin | Jun 03, 2011 09:21am | #12

            Attic why?

            Well, I am supposing that there might not be separation in the attic areas (between units).  Here, for several yrs even 2 unit townhouses required separation at crawl and attic.  No higher than the roof parapet, but complete 2 hour separation. 

            Re: the mold issue.  Would there be 6 mil plastic overlapped on the ground and run up the foundation walls behind the insulation (foam)?  If not a good seal (just thrown around and jumbled up by the work down there), this could contribute greatly to the mold issue.  Warm moist air in the crawl..

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