NOV, Notice Of Violation, Clients During Covid

 NOV Client #3

This client remodeled his entire house, and was adding rooms without a permit downstairs, when a neighbor complained.

When the building inspector came out to the site, he served my client with an NOV.

The NOV was originally limited to the new work at the ground floor, but at his discretion the building inspector chose to expand the NOV to the entire building, plus an illegal addition to the building 20 years prior to my client owning the building.

The Punch List of Violations from the City was 160 items.

Prior to myself another Architect had tried to work through the violation list, and quit in frustration.

My first step, after inheriting this job, was to have a series of emails, texts and phone conversations with the Building Inspector to clarify his list, remove items, where possible that were pre-existing.

To further reduce the punch list, lower the cost of work to resolve the NOV, and to remove any engineering reviews for a permit set to resolve the NOV, I had my client remove an illegal ground floor addition built by an owner prior to his purchase of the property.

On the cities first review of my permit set, they had 17 comments.

After a sit down at the office of the inspector, this list was reduced to 2 items, and then the permit was approved.

The work is taking place now, and when complete the NOV will be abated.