Seasonal Maine home

rcrickarby

We own a seasonal cottage on an island off of Portland, ME. We are doing a small addition of a 1st floor primary bed & bath. We want to do the plumbing ourselves (no heating system involved). Are we able to pull the permit as the homeowner even though it is not our primary residence?

EdTheHeaterMan

Of Course you can, unless there is a law against it!

Intplm.

Most areas allow for home owners to pull there own work permits.
Your towns town hall or other building permit authority will surely let you know.

kcopp

Portland can be funny about this.
Where it on an island you probably have a pretty good chance to allow them to agree to you doing the work.
Trying to get a licensed guy to travel out there is a trick.
The limited means to get there is costly. A water taxi or casco bay cruise lines can add up costs. I did a project for a friend/ customer on Great Diamond a couple years back and that was hard to time everything. he paid for a barge to get my truck out there...$$$.
Ask the City if its ok. See what you get.
Which Island?

rcrickarby

Thank you Kcopp! Great Diamond Island. We have a friend who is a licensed plumber who is going to help us do the work, but he does not want to be involved with the permit process. There is something in the Maine code that says the HO can pull the permit if it is his/hers “bona fide personal abode”. We are trying to figure out what that means. It is our personal abode but not our primary residence as it is seasonal. BTW… are you a member of the Coppinger family?

Intplm.

rcrickarby said:

Thank you Kcopp! Great Diamond Island. We have a friend who is a licensed plumber who is going to help us do the work, but he does not want to be involved with the permit process. There is something in the Maine code that says the HO can pull the permit if it is his/hers “bona fide personal abode”. We are trying to figure out what that means. It is our personal abode but not our primary residence as it is seasonal. BTW… are you a member of the Coppinger family?

"Bona fide personal abode"? Wow there's some real specific language.

But seriously. If that question is asked just say yes it is. If they push further say, yes it is. And later you can always change your mind and say, I changed my mind. Seems quite ridiculous but so is "bona fide personal abode." After all it will be your bonafidepersonalabode when you are there.

GGross

The areas I am familiar with you can pull a homeowner permit if it's your own home. You don't have to live there full time, you just can't be renting it out. In my area it is also illegal for a licensed plumber/electrician/mechanical to perform paid work while working under a homeowner permit. You know your friend better than I do, so I defer to your judgement, but it would throw some pretty big red flags for me personally that a plumber would ask me to pull a homeowner permit. Remember that as the permit holder, YOU are solely responsible for passing inspection, there is no recourse to go after anyone you hired to work under your permit.

ethicalpaul

it just means "actual personal home". It doesn't seem to care about first, second, or fifth home. They really just want to make sure you aren't renting it out.