This is a question I have received several times this month. The short answer is, kind of.
The issue we have being seeing is that home construction permits are not being close out properly by the builders. The permits that we have come across as most impacted are pool, decks and addition permits since the County is not issuing any permits if the house permit is not fully issued/closed.
In some cases the builder has pulled a permit for the construction of the house, but unknowingly did not submit 3rd party inspections to the County. Without these inspections uploaded to MGO (MyGovernment Online) the County will not issue the house permit and subsequently stop any future permits (pool, addition, deck, etc.) from being issued.
Is this a new requirement?
Again, Kind of.
According to Travis County, the State of Texas directed counties to require these 3rd party inspections in 2009, once they stopped requiring builder to submit these directly to the State. The State did not provide any resources or a legal means for the Counties to charge a fee to receive these inspections. With lack of funding and staff there was no way to enforce the State mandate until now.
On July of 2021, Travis County began enforcing the state mandate by withholding the issuance of any permits until the 3rd party inspections are received.
What you should do?
If you are a builder, be sure to submit your 3rd party inspection reports on MGO within 30 days of the completion of the build. This will ensure that your construction permit is closed out/issued and the future owners (or builders) do not run into any issues when trying to pull a permit.
If you are a homeowner and have received a comment/denial on your permit due to the lack of these third party inspections the best thing to do is to contact your builder and ask that they please have this done ASAP.
