I'm by no means a legal expert but I think you'd find you might not get a fine in so much as the local utility company disconnects you until they are satisfied the work is safe. The fine would only be secondary and it might be for some other reason obstruction etc not for not having the permit. Then again you might find yourself fighting the municipality on some local bylaws that you may not realize your breaking. In other words they make life misserable for you until you do what they want and in reallity they can do it as long as they make sure whatever they go after you for is legal and you can't prove harassment

 

Now why would you be stupid enough to advertise that you did an unsafe alteration,,, or one at all? Wait,,, I dont want to know. There is very little precedence for my point and would be difficult to find. Most cases like this would be dismissed so as not to set any. Why would you want to advertise the fact when 99% of the people belive you are bound to it anyway.(IRS works this way) As you said,, "As most of us believe" There has never been a truer statement. As gard says,, most likely some would try to make life miserable before it would really come to legal matters. Thats usually the way governments work,, take the IRS for example. I am not offering you legal advice,,, but ,,, what makes you think you get much straight advice from lawyers,,, just because you pay them,,,,, hahaha Lawyers love you guys. I am also NOT advocating that you dont follow codes or NOT get a permit,, I am just pointing out that you probably cant be forced to get one. Read some of the sections they quote in the fine print where the signature goes. The purpose of a permit is to gain permission. I saw one recently dealing with the DNR and dept of environmental quality. 2 pages of this and that, then within the box that was to be signed the fine print started. It stated that the signee was giving permission for the DNR to call who ever they want to come to inspect including the Corp of Engineers and several other govt agencies. So the permit want only in effect for the agency which it was applied to,,, it was all of them. It wasnt included in the 2 pages,,, it was a waiver in the fine print. Also a building dept or inspt cant fine you,, they may write a ticket,,,, but only the court can fine.

 

Sberry, do you have any precedents to cite or are you just voicing your opinions? Why all the multiple commas? They make reading your posts difficult.

Here is my opinion. If you are doing electrical work as a DIYer then you should pull a permit and get the thing inspected. Remember, it's a four year job just to get to journeyman status. Most of us cast halos about our heads - we think we can do anything. Don't mess around with the electricity unless you are consulting with some professionals.

 

Again,,, after numerous explanations the point is clearly missed here and obviously no one has read the fine print on permits. No one here, including me is advocating that you do not get permits and inspections. Now, re-read that again if it was difficult to understand. The original question was not should I have an inspection but if I HAD to have one. In some instances you absolutely have to. Especially when you are bound by another contract to have one,,, such as a lien with the bank, contract with an insurance company or for a hookup with the power company. They require a permit as part of their terms of service. As for adding a circuit in property you own (not rentals or commercial property) you probably dont need one. It has just been handed down form person to person to include that. Ask anyone with a vested interest in this system and you are going to get a biased answer. A good example is a lot of the residentail code for building homes. The majority of interests are the lumber people so the code heavily favors that type of building. Ask your lumberyard about a steel framed home and see how many plusses you get. Steel and fiberglass are far superior in terms of structural integrety,insect resistance, fire resistance, stability. design options and probably a few others I havnt thought of. Wood has termites, burns well, warps before and after, settles, splits and has poor tensile stength among other things. But ask the common home builder his opinion, especially when you are buying from him and see what the answer is. Now ask a judge about any state rule or law, reminding yourself that he is a state employee and do you think there is going to be an unbiased answer? Thats why there is not a lot of precedence for my position as those that are going to give the answer to the question usually have an interest in it. Here we have inspecters, agencies, municipallities, contractors unions, proffesional organizations and probably others I have not included who would at best certainly just find it easier to say,,, yes you need to get a permit than to make any waves. The law often states what you have to do, what you cannot do but almost never states what you may not have to do. And there is certainally no point in rocking the boat if everyone is going along with it anyway. We hear a lot of quotes of precedence of case law every day but poor case law makes for poor law. Quote of cases are not laws either,, they are just examples to form opinions from. That doesnt make quotes laws. Another thing is that laws and codes get things written into them all the time that become status quo just because they are not challenged. It doesnt mean they dont infringe on peoples rights, it just means they havnt had their day in court and often because it is so difficult and not worth it to the average person to take up a cause of that nature. This is my last post to this thread.