The permit was issued seven months ago, no work of any kind has been started on the lot, no inspection has ever been requested, and nothing has been submitted to the department in writing since issuance. The owner now wants his excavator on the site next week. The jurisdiction adopted the administrative provisions without local amendment. What is the correct determination?
- AThe permit stays valid for one full year from the date it was issued, because the expiration period runs from the last approved inspection rather than from the day of issuance
A permit does not carry a flat one-year life, and an expiration measured from the last inspection cannot apply where no inspection ever happened. This reading would keep a permit alive forever on a lot nobody ever touched.
- The permit has become invalid, because the authorized work was never commenced within 180 days of issuance and no written extension was requested before that ran out
- CThe permit stays valid for as long as the fee remains on deposit, because the expiration provisions reach only work that was started and then left standing for a season
Paying the fee buys review and inspection, not an open-ended authorization. The code sets two separate 180-day triggers, and failure to commence the work is one of them, entirely apart from abandonment after a start.
- DThe permit lapsed 30 days after issuance and can be reinstated at the counter for half the original permit fee, because no inspection was ever performed against it
Thirty days is not the period the code sets, and there is no counter reinstatement on a half fee. Inventing a shorter clock and a cheaper cure both miss the written extension the code actually provides.
Why B is correct
The 180-day clock runs from issuance where work never starts, and separately from the last activity where work stops. Seven idle months with no written extension request leaves the permit invalid, and the owner must obtain a new permit before the excavator arrives.
What this question is testing
Whether the candidate knows both triggers for permit invalidity, keeps the commencement clock separate from the abandonment clock, and knows the written-extension relief and when it has to be asked for.
On the job
Permits go stale constantly on speculative lots where financing falls through. The counter conversation is always the same, and the inspector is usually the one who has it: the owner wants to treat the card on the stake as permission. Departments do issue extensions freely for justifiable cause, which is exactly why the code puts the request in writing before the period runs, and why the file, not the card, is the record that decides it.
Memory technique
A permit never started still dies at 180 days.
Exam tip
Two clocks, one number: 180 days to start, 180 days of idleness after starting.
Where to look it up
IRC Chapter 1 administration, the permit sections covering validity and expiration.