Owner builder sale restriction

[Sean Dougherty]

Need some ideas/suggestions. I recently JV'd on a project with a homeowner with intent to sell upon completion.

I financed the remaining 30% of a new build. Plan was to have my contractor take over the building permit thus avoiding the 1 year sale restriction for Owner Builder.

Just found out that the current permits were pulled over 3 years ago. Local regulations provide up to 3 years for contractors to final their builds. Owner builders have 5 years to complete. Sticking with Owner builder permits is my only option.

Is there any creative way around this sale restriction?

[Damon Owens]

The legal workaround is to have a licensed GC friend be the GC for the project. They’ll need to pull the permit and designate you as the superintendent, which means they actually need to hire you. Luckily you can negotiate an extremely low pay which means you’ll need to pay your friend, to pay you, not much money. You’ll need to reimburse them for GL insurance as well, as well as some sort of equitable, but low fee. 

That’s a legal way. I worked on Oahu, Maui, and Kaua’i for 8 years and have met lots of people that didn’t do it legally, but were never caught. I can’t recommend that though.