Tracking permits and inspections that can stop the job
A city enforcement officer is waiting on Wednesday morning when the concrete pump pulls into the curb lane beside a three-storey art gallery under construction downtown: the job's street-use permit expired the day before. The first truck is already on the road. The permit sat in a binder with four others, and nobody had checked its dates since it arrived.
Any permit that lapses, any condition that is broken and any required inspection nobody booked can halt the work, so keep one tracker of all three, each line with the date it is needed, the date it runs out and the person who books or renews it. Permits come from several authorities with different clocks, and their conditions sit in documents nobody rereads. In Toronto, for example, a building permit more than 18 months old with no inspection requested draws a notice of intention to revoke, and the permit is revoked unless an inspection requested before the deadline shows that work has genuinely started.
- List every permit and approval from every authority: building, demolition, electrical, plumbing, street use, hoarding, crane swing, tree protection, noise exemptions.
- Read the conditions into the tracker: expiry, hours, notices, inspection stages, documents to keep on site.
- Add each inspection by stage, with the date the look-ahead needs it, the notice required and one name for who books it. Getting each one ready is covered in preparing for a building inspection.
- Work back from every expiry to a renew-by date, confirming the authority's processing time before the planned work. Allow for the documents and approvals a renewal needs.
- Review it weekly against the three-week look-ahead, and record every result the same day.
Common mistakes
- Tracking the building inspections and forgetting other authorities' permits.
- Assuming each trade books its own inspections, with no name on the line.
- Recording expiry dates but not how long a renewal takes.
- Reading a permit's conditions once, when it arrives.
Checklist
Every line of the tracker
- The permit or inspection, and its authority
- Its number and what it covers
- Conditions: hours, notices, stages, documents on site
- The date it is needed and the date it expires
- A book-by or renew-by date, worked back
- One named person who books or renews it
- Its status, checked every week
Check your understanding
The plumbing subcontractor holds the plumbing permit and books its own inspections. Does that permit still belong in your tracker?
