Occupancy Permit: Fill & Download for Free

My landlord just informed me I don't have an occupancy permit to live in his house he's renting to me. What do I do?Ask him what HE plans to do about this. The occupancy permit is HIS responsibility, not yours. If it was required for a legal rental, and he rented the property to you without one, then HE’s in violation of the law, not you. You rented in good faith.I would also suggest you contact an attorney. Most will give you a free consultation. Just check to see what COULD possibly happen, so you’re prepared.Then prepare for the worst case scenario. That way, you won’t be blindsided.

I was in Arizona for a winter, living in a tent. My kids got to know some neighbors to our tent site, and so I got familiar with their mom, a 21-year-old Mormon mother of 4, with one on the way, and a husband who was a vehicle mechanic in a shop. They got by by the skin of their teeth.I go over to their home to find her weeping into the dishwater, keeping her back carefully to her children so they wouldn’t know. She was a sweet girl, and I finally get the story of what has her so terribly upset:The light switch by the front door of their trailer had shocked her son, so she called an electrician. The electrician had come and inspected it (without removing the switch plate) and said that he would have to get a permit to do the work, and it would be about a week to get her an estimate. A week had gone by, and that morning the electrician had presented her with an estimate of $5,000, AND a 30 notice of cancellation of her occupancy permit. If she did not pay this guy $5,000 to fix her light switch, and a bunch of other work he decided (without removing the switch cover) was absolutely necessary to the safe occupancy of her trailer, she would have to move out of it and live in the yard in a tent with her children. She did not have $5,000 or the credit to borrow it, or the budget to pay the loan if she did… So. She was praying and crying into her dishwater.I asked her where her breaker box was; she didn’t know. The electrician hadn’t needed to know that! We hunted and found it. None of the breakers was labeled. I turned them all off, unscrewed the plate on the switch, and saw that the problem was that the door edge of the trailer had leaked a bit, and the dampness had corroded one of the contacts. I took out the switch, cleaned it up, cleaned and cut back the very generous wire and put it back in. I caulked the edge of the door. Maximum 30 minutes. All is now well!A couple days later an *armed building inspector comes to my camp. It turns out that it is illegal to fix your OWN switch, and it is certainly illegal to fix *someone else’s* switch. In any case, it is illegal to do it without getting a permit for the repair, which is not available unless you are a licensed electrician! This guy had gone to her trailer and she had innocently said I fixed it for her — isn’t that wonderful! The guy did not arrest me because I had not charged her anything for it, and never said I was an electrician, and she did not have to move out of her house, though she DID end up with a fine. I was not fined.I told her that in the future, should someone fix something that was on a recorded occupancy permit notice, and someone came back to check the work was done, she should tell them that she prayed over it and Jesus fixed it.I would love to see them try and argue with that.

I feel your pain.Every family in the neighborhood uses our alley as a playground. What’s maddening is that we live across the street from a 16 acre park![ Image c/o J. Gravelle ]The speed limit in the alley is 15 mph. My Mustang idles at 12 mph.Despite covering the brake the entire way AND traveling 20% slower than the legal speed, I get dirty looks from the parents, some of whom try and exercise some sort of weird, paternalistic eminent domain by putting these obnoxious obstacles in the roadway:[ Image c/o Amazon. They sell these. ]Dunno if you’re in ‘Murica, but most municipalities here require what’s called an Occupational Permit to block the street, either partially or fully.Technically, the permit (as its name implies) allows somebody to “occupy” the roadway temporarily. Anybody doing so without this license is in violation of the law and, as so many others have advised, should be made aware of this by the local authorities.In our case, we have “neighborhood officer”s, specially tasked with resolving these sorts of disputes, with each N.O. having an assigned region.Find out if you have one, and talk to them. Good luck…= = = = = = = = =[ Image c/o J. Gravelle ]