Permit Problems Cost Real Estate Investors Time, Money, and Deals | Clair Millard Explains

Clair Millard (00:00)
They don’t want to pull a permit. They push back pulling permits. I would say that’s the biggest red flag. They don’t give you the right forms. they’re, they’re, they’re always like, have to, so no matter what in Florida, pretty much no matter what you have to do, you got to file a notice of commencement. Uh, you, it’s a, it’s a form, you fill it out. It says who the owner is, who the mortgage broker is, who the contractor is.

Dylan Silver (00:05)
Hey folks, today we’re joined by returning guest, Clair Millard, a certified general contractor based in North Florida in the Jacksonville market with over 22 years of experience. He focuses on developing, designing and building projects across new construction, commercial build outs, residential renovations and multifamily work. Today we’ll be focusing on permitting and how permits impact real estate development projects. Clair, welcome back.

Clair Millard (02:22)
Well, thank you for having me. I enjoyed our last episode.

Dylan Silver (02:26)
What’s something about the permitting process that investors tend to underestimate or overlook?

Clair Millard (02:34)
⁓ I think it’s the attitude as this is my property. I should be able to do whatever I want with it. ⁓ type of situation and not understand like the need of give an example of if you’re replacing the windows, Florida has a lot of new window codes. ⁓ so if you replace your windows and you don’t get it inspected, then you, might not meet the

current code and then a storm comes through and the windows get blown out and you don’t get your insurance coverage like you’re supposed to because they’re like, it’s a new window, but there’s no inspections. How do we know that it was screwed off in every hole that you had the taping appropriate and all that? So, I mean, I just think that in especially new investors, they don’t understand that.

the city is there to protect you in your interest because again, you don’t really know what you’re doing. You’ve watched the TV show and you said, I really want to do this. And you don’t understand it. You might not be doing it correctly.

Dylan Silver (03:39)
What’s a realistic permitting timeline for a renovation?

Clair Millard (03:47)
All right, so we also own a roofing company. So it’s separate from Ronin Contractors, it’s Affinity Roofing Contractors. That is 24 hours. If you were like, hey Clair, I need a new roof in my house, we submit it to City of Jacksonville on their online portal. Within 48 hours, they come back, says it’s approved. ⁓ If you’re doing a minor renovation like Windows, it’d probably take five days. If you end up doing a major renovation.

The city has about 20 days to or the city county, the local authority has about 20 days to 20 business days to review it.

Dylan Silver (04:22)
Are there any common areas of those longer, more time intensive reviews that you see these properties getting stuck or rejected in when they’re submitting that 20 day review?

Clair Millard (04:37)
It’s them not knowing because Florida has what’s called a product, it’s the Florida product approval code. So again, I’m speaking about Florida overall, but they have a Florida product approval code and they, that manufacturer again, Windows has submitted testing results to the state of Florida and the estate has approved it. So like if you go,

you might go, can go into like for me, Georgia or Alabama, cause there’s surrounding States go to their home depot or Lowe’s.

and you might be able to pick up a window that doesn’t meet our code. So I don’t think window companies are doing that because they’re not going to come out there and say, this is just a Florida window. Hey, we’re just going to make all of our windows meet the Florida standard overall. It’s just an easier manufacturing process. But I think that’s one of them and not knowing the application that they’re really doing. Is it an entry door? Is it an entry door between a garage and the house? Is it the entry door from the, it’s your front door type of situation?

I think those are the big headaches that an owner builder might get hung up at. Cause as an owner builder, the city’s still gonna hold you at the standard of you are a contractor. Now they’ll hold your hand a little bit more and a little bit, but hey, I don’t do this all the time. Can you help me check these boxes?

Dylan Silver (06:41)
So in effect, although someone might be able to do the work, they might not be familiar with the paperwork involved in submitting the permits and it could get caught up purely based on the paperwork.

Clair Millard (06:52)
Correct. If you didn’t check the right box, if you said the wrong application, if you’re, it could fail. I mean, say you, you submit an application, you think it’s right. The city approves it. comes out to the, the, ⁓ the inspector comes out and says, Whoa, whoa, whoa, this isn’t the application that you submitted for. And now, now you get this red tag and you have to resubmit.

Dylan Silver (07:16)
For new construction pivoting here, how do zoning and permitting interact?

Clair Millard (07:24)
Um, they, they don’t really on that one. That’s that’s going to, but zoning and design would interact, which the design would say, okay, um, this is the size of the house that you can build. if going back to what we talked about previously, the RLD 90, uh, the maximum square footage lot coverage you can have is 4,500 square feet. So if someone tried to put in five, 6,000 square feet.

on a permit, that’s where it will get kicked back. But during the permit process, it does go to zoning as well. So zoning has to, especially on an initial inspection or an initial review, it goes through zoning, goes through concurrency, it goes through subdivision, goes through fire review, it goes through public works to make sure that… ⁓

you’re able to connect and I think it also usually goes to the local utility but there’s also a letter of availability that goes to the utility companies.

Dylan Silver (08:25)
Can investors have a specific approach with city or county offices to speed things up and instead of getting things delayed, is there anything that they can do with nurturing those relationships?

Clair Millard (08:40)
I think you go in and you be polite. My, ⁓ my business partner, Severina talks about me having the country boy act that I go in and I’m always kind of polite. I’m like, Hey, I have a problem. Can you help me type of situation? Not come in with the attitude as this is my property. I know what I want. I should be able to build this McMansion on this 5,000 square foot lot. And you’re just not going to get

past the initial, the gatekeeper. Cause like now you got the wrong attitude here. Here’s the big book that you have to do to get through the permits. But if you come in there and say, look, Hey, I don’t know what I need to do. And I still do it all the time. I was there this week or last week. I was like, I don’t know what the owner did, but I got to figure it out. And then the lady pulled me into her office and sat with me for 30 minutes and got me in the right direction on how to correct their mistake. Cause they did a permit.

application without a contractor. I ⁓ guess one thing is if you in again, Florida, and I think this is probably going to be current because it’s usually the Florida code is part of the Southeastern international code. If you’re an owner and you own it in your name, so Clair Millard, if I own a property,

can pull on owner builder permit and I can do whatever work I want onto it. If I want to reroof the house, I can reroof it. If I want to redo the windows.

But if I own it in a name, say Ronin Contractors Land Development, I’m not really an owner. I’m an employee of Ronin Contractors and I can’t pull a permit on that behalf. You legally have to hire a licensed contractor to do that work because you’re not, you don’t own it. And also if you do and try like a TI work, a proven like say you want to do put in a coffee shop or something. It’s the same thing. You don’t own that building. You own that business, but

The renovations have to be performed by a licensed contractor.

Dylan Silver (11:16)
So in permitting, unless you own the underlying land, should have a contract. In your name, you should have a contractor pull the permits.

Clair Millard (11:22)
in your name.

Correct, you have to by state regulate, state statues. You have to.

Dylan Silver (11:30)
I can imagine a lot of investors maybe get caught up right there because they’re thinking, well, I’m doing some type of renovation here. Let me save the GC some time, but they can’t do it. That’s completely incumbent on the GC.

Clair Millard (11:44)
Yes, it really is because the county is hoping, the state and the local governments are hoping that a competent individual is doing the work, not someone that just sit there and watch TV. So let me give you another example about someone, a permit that’s needed, that I’m not even associated with, a water heater or your electrical, or like if you want to replace your AC system. One of the reasons why you have to have a permit

for a water heater or AC, you have two separate subs. You have the plumber and electrician for a water heater, because the plumber can’t hook up the water heater to the electrical voltage. And the same thing on the AC side. The AC contractor cannot hook it up to the disconnect. They can put the whip in, but they can’t hook the two wires together. So part of it is to make sure those two subs communicate it correctly and…

The other is to make sure like the electrician didn’t wire it backward and you just burnt up your new AC system using some guy off the of the street corner.

Dylan Silver (12:49)
Going back to ground up new construction, what’s a permitting hurdle that you’ve seen that shows up more often with raw land, let’s say?

Clair Millard (13:01)
Honestly, the only one that I saw recently was window sizes. You have to, because if you don’t, you have to have two forms of egress out of a room. So let’s say not a master bedroom, because a master bedroom usually have those big bay windows. You have access to the patio, but you say one of your guest bedrooms, your kid’s bedroom. So one egress point is you walk it in through that door. The second egress point would be a window.

Dylan Silver (13:08)
Hmph.

Clair Millard (13:29)
So you have to be able to put a window in that the majority of Americans can fit through if a fire happened. So one of the projects we had, ⁓ it just was a complete mistake by the building department, because a lot of times on residential size, a lot of it is they wanted to make sure that the building’s gonna stand. It’s not gonna collapse in on itself. But it was an oversight by the building official. They didn’t realize that the window sizes were the wrong size. They were fixed windows and not operable windows at the time.

So the fire department came by, looked at it and said, those windows are wrong, called the building department and got us involved. So I would say that’s the most common is not knowing the window sizes so people can egress in and out if necessary.

Dylan Silver (14:12)
Now, when these types of permitting processes end up taking longer than expected, and let’s say they take months, and I haven’t heard this in Florida, but I’ve certainly heard this in other areas, where do you suspect the problems are arising that are causing these delays?

Clair Millard (14:30)
I would say for the most part, it’s the city not keeping the employees held accountable for making sure that the work’s being done. I was, again, I told you I was at the building department a couple of weeks ago or last week. so in Florida or depending, yeah, I think overall in Florida, most, building permits say B as in boy for building and the year that it was issued and then some numbers behind it. it’s whatever.

I was looking at building permits that dated back to B 2024 and B 2025.

And I’m like, we’re already in 2026. either they didn’t pick up, come back and pick up the permits and it was lost in translation that it was approved. The job fell through. But I think if.

I was doing a project, and I’ll give you an example. I was doing a project in Nashville, Tennessee, and the fire, they groan and blew up so far out. And fire inspector was six weeks out, so you had to schedule a fire inspection six weeks out. If you failed or missed it, you don’t get another inspection for six weeks. The elevator guy was ⁓ like three months out. So if you…

failed to get your elevator certificate for the state inspector. So I would say either they’re not holding their employees accountable or they’re so much work and they’re overworked and they’re not able to go in and review the projects in a timely manner.

Dylan Silver (16:49)
Now, you’ve of course, you’re in you’re in Jacksonville area, but you’re out there in Florida. Do you get the sense that certain markets in Florida have better permitting processes and timelines than others? Or does it really just depend on that individual investor’s relationship with with the locals?

Clair Millard (17:09)
⁓ I think some are better. got one going on right now in Putnam County. And it’s a, as simple as we’re going to restucco the outside of a commercial building. And it’s looking like I won’t get the permit until next week. And we applied for it last week or the week before, but they, they didn’t have the right category for what I was doing. They had new construction, which this isn’t a new construction.

Dylan Silver (17:28)
Yeah, so several.

Clair Millard (17:39)
And then they kind of talked about single family construction, but it was a commercial renovation. was, I, we’re going to go in and rip the stucco off the side of the building. ⁓ and there’s put new stucco on there. I think what the issues could be is the cities don’t have a lot of money to invest into their computer programs. And those programs are limited to what you input it in.

Dylan Silver (18:02)
Yeah.

Clair Millard (18:05)
So there’s probably not a lot of renovation projects going commercial renovation project going on in Putnam County. So they never thought about it. But like I gave you the example before, like if I reroof the project in Jacksonville, I can get the permit within 24 or 48 hours. I’m redoing stucco. There’s no reason that it’s going to take three weeks for them to review my building permit application. But because they have to check certain boxes, that’s why it’s going to take.

Dylan Silver (18:15)
Yeah.

Clair Millard (18:35)
Probably the whole month.

Dylan Silver (18:38)
Now for every permit that’s ⁓ pulled, does there have to be an associated inspection tied to that?

Clair Millard (18:46)
A lot of them are just finals. Like if you’re going to have like the window, give an example, a window. A lot of times the window is just a final. They’re just hoping that the window installer did it correctly. ⁓ Roofs, they do an in progress and a final. So the majority of the inspections that you will have non MEP, mechanical electrical plumbing, they’re probably just going to be an overall final inspection. Hey, I got to take a door out and put a new door in. The inspector may ask you to take a picture. ⁓

I don’t know, I probably get myself in trouble one time. I got an inspection one time by taking photos. It wasn’t a critical inspection, was just they wanted to confirm the installation was in the wall. So I was able to talk to the building inspector that I had a good enough relationship with, was like, hey, look, I was hoping to do drywall starting on Monday. And he’s like, let’s take pictures, show it to me. Now I wouldn’t do that with a framing inspection, I wouldn’t do that with a sheeting inspection, but.

because it was insulation, it was just kind of an easy one to ask for a favor on. And I think that’s one of the things that a contractor brings to the table is we have the relationships already with the inspectors. When I was doing window replacements in Ocala, Florida for a while via one of the big box stores, and the inspector said, who did your work to the homeowner? And they’re like, yeah, it was a husband and wife crew. was a, so, and they’re like, you’re good.

like same thing out of the Atlantic, Atlantic beach, Jacksonville under like they, everybody thinks Ronin is my, my last name or our last names. And they’re always like, did Ronin do it? And they’re like, yeah, you’re good. Cause I know we just built a relationship and a reputation of doing it right. Doing it right. The first time.

Dylan Silver (20:30)
Bonus question here for you, Clair. What’s a red flag that a contractor doesn’t really understand the full permitting process?

Clair Millard (20:40)
They don’t want to pull a permit. They push back pulling permits. I would say that’s the biggest red flag. They don’t give you the right forms. they’re, they’re, they’re always like, have to, so no matter what in Florida, pretty much no matter what you have to do, you got to file a notice of commencement. Uh, you, it’s a, it’s a form, you fill it out. It says who the owner is, who the mortgage broker is, who the contractor

Dylan Silver (20:46)
Yeah. Yeah.

Clair Millard (21:05)
Um,

The state regulations anywhere between 25 to $5,000 if you’re doing that much improvements of your house. But I recommend just doing it because it’s just easy. ⁓ You sign it, you record it. It just basically is ⁓ a legal notice that the owner has hired a contractor to do the work. ⁓ And that way any subs have that information. A lot of people get nervous about doing liens. Like not to

go down another road hole. But notice the commencement is going to protect you as the investor slash homeowner, me as the contractor and me and my subcontractors as the homeowner, you’re protected. So there’s a legal procedure on how you have to deal with work as a, a, as a contractor. So if you hired me to renovate your house and you don’t, and you know, it’s a $200,000.

Dylan Silver (21:35)
Yeah. Yeah.

Clair Millard (22:03)
job and you don’t see a notice to owner, which is just a letter that a subcontractor, a legal letter to the subcontractor sends to the owner, the mortgage company says, Hey, Ronin contractors has hired me to work on your job. That’s going to be a red flag because there’s a way to screw that. The subcontractor down the road, if the contractor doesn’t pay. And then there’s a lot of legal procedures. Like it’s

In reality, it’s better to be safe than sorry, but that way the the homeowner kind of knows who the plumber is and the homeowner I don’t recommend this all the time, but if you’re if the homeowners getting this

Weird feeling by the contractor. People are not showing up. Like they’ve already paid 50 % or 30 % or whatever. There’s a lot of billing being happening, but not a lot of work been done. Now the owner can reach out to the plumber. So, Hey, you were here three weeks ago. ⁓ It looks like you’re ready to come back. Have you gotten started? And the guy’s like, I haven’t been paid for the initial work. So now there’s like, so now the homeowner can kind of either pay the plumber directly to keep going or

and they could have the red flags with the contractor says, hey, you owe people money. We need to clean this up before it gets going down. again, it now protects the owner because now the owner can say, hey, I paid. Here’s a notice of commencement. I now can sue the contractor for breach of contract or the contractors could.

Dylan Silver (23:34)
We are coming

up on time here, Clair. What’s new today? What do you have new in your business these days?

Clair Millard (23:42)
new today. I’m meeting after I get done with you. I’m going to meet with a lovely lady who I’ll be doing a second project with. I’m just going to discuss her kitchen renovation. So it’s a little $40,000 small project, but it’s being able to say that I worked for the same person twice now in two different homes is a pretty good thing. And I guess the biggest thing is on May 2nd, I have a live auction for the chair for a charity that I’ve been working with. So get to see me.

Dylan Silver (24:10)
Awesome.

Clair Millard (24:11)
Get to see me do that bit talking.

Dylan Silver (24:14)
Best way for folks to reach out to your team.

Clair Millard (24:16)
Clair CLAIR at Ronincontractors.net, but it’s dot net ([email protected]). everybody gets confused with.com type of situation.