Today we’re gonna talk about permits, approvals, inspections, dealing with municipalities, cities, building departments, and what should I be thinking about going into a project and what should I be on the lookout for if I’m doing a large project and I need to pull a permit?

Yeah, I think it’s going back to the beginning, when we first started Kingdom & Co.

Our ultimate goal was to try to avoid anything possible, to not do permits when it came to like, we’ll just do a small kitchen remodel, or we’ll just do some minor thing here or there because we were so fearful of permits because they were such a pain in the butt.

They are like kind of the scary monster in the closet.

You’re gonna fear something more the less you understand it.

The more you understand it, the less you’ll fear it.

As we grew as a company and as we really dug in and had to dig into the permit process, we got a lot more comfortable with that and understood some of the pitfalls and some of the reasons why things can get stuck in permitting.

Well, and what really helps is because we do so many projects, we have such good relationships with the county, the city, the city of Henderson.

We’re able to get permits done and know exactly what they need.

And we have a team, we have to hire a full-time team just to get permits and plans approved because it’s so challenging here in Las Vegas.

It’s just one of those things.

And so when I hear a friend say, hey, I’m just gonna get a permit on my own, I think to myself, ooh, that sounds exhausting because of how much goes into it.

Well, you know that there’s gonna be a learning curve.

When it comes, what I’ve noticed is when we’re dealing with the municipalities, you wanna remove all of those objection points that a city inspector is gonna bring up or a plans checker is gonna bring up.

But you wanna have the foresight before it gets to their desk because it’s gonna take two, three, four weeks to get to their desk.

Then just for them to say, no, you need to redo this and turn it back in.

And then two, three, four weeks for them to get back on their desk.

You wanna get away ahead of that and realize, okay, here’s my entire package that I’m submitting to the building department, whether it’s city, county.

And where are the points?

Like we’re working on the spec home now.

I know, hey, our package is missing an updated soils letter.

Most people would go into that and not realize it until the first plans checker says, hey, I need this.

And nothing has happened since then.

So I already know going into it, I need to get that in.

And I kind of have an approximate date of when I need to hit that in order to get it in front of that guy as soon.

So it’s the first thing.

So basically removing all objection points for that thing to move forward.

Going back, remember when we did the Lotus House a while back ago, when we didn’t have the awareness of what was going on, we felt like the goalpost was always changing and moving.

Because, and they will change and move if they don’t trust you and don’t know you.

And they don’t, and that’s why, again, Kingdom & Co has such power because they know us, we do things right, we have checklists.

And the knowledge of knowing how to get everything across the finish line is super important.

And like you said, you can lose literally months if you don’t know what you’re doing, and then that turns into money and time.

Absolutely, especially if you’re on the hook for any type of financing for the project.

Yes.

Yeah, it can get real expensive real quick.

That’s why we love what we do is to design build is when we have good plans and also a plans team that can actually submit clean set of plans that the county and city and Henderson need, things just go a lot smoother and it’s awesome.

All right, let’s kind of switch topics and discuss, I think everybody has had a neighbor or a friend and have them retell of a nightmare contractor experience.

And there’s even jokes on social media of, hey, this is the two more weeks guys, right?

When’s my project gonna be done?

Oh, just two more weeks, right?

So there’s always those stories of those projects that keep getting delayed and delayed and delayed.

And that end up being a huge difference between what you thought it would be and what it ended up being.

And we were just discussing this before we hit play or hit record is that invariably, almost invariably, projects that ended up like that were somehow related to somebody took a shortcut during the design process.

When people wanna take shortcuts, they don’t wanna pay for the right team or they think they know better.

Most times, and then the challenge comes down to is they also wanna point blame.

Nobody ever wants to be responsible for their mistakes, which it was understandable.

But when people don’t understand and wanna do it themselves, they run into a big time risk of losing money, time, energy, and blame and having a terrible experience because they didn’t want to do it the right way.

And you have stories, I mean, social media stories that you’ve seen.

Yeah, I was just on one project recently.

We were working hard to, this customer was on a real tight budget and understandably, they wanted to get a lot more done than what we could fully do on a full project.

But what came with that is they were also under a time crunch because they were dealing with an expiring lease.

And so there was a lot of angst.

I gotta start now, I gotta start now, I gotta be out of my apartment by this date, right?

What always ends up happening is they oversimplify the process.

They just wanna get the demo guys in there.

We just gotta get going because I gotta be out by this date.

And they end up delaying decisions that need to be made far in advance to get a certain outcome that they want.

So in this case, dealing with the different levels of how you finish out a slider door track and then how you wanna finish out your pavers.

Transitions, you always talk about transitions.

Transitions, okay.

Okay, the door track is set.

The window guys have come in and they’ve yet to even figure out the material and the elevation and the transition of how they’re gonna finish out the patio.

And it’s like, guys, that should have been figured out weeks, months ago.

The challenge is you don’t know what you don’t know.

Correct.

And so in doing that, you don’t know all of the obstacles that you’re going to encounter, especially when you oversimplify a process.

And yeah, it always ends up becoming an experience very different than what you anticipated.

And something that we always discuss and you hit the word perfectly was oversimplifying.

We were guilty of it.

And even now and then, we still are guilty of it.

We oversimplify how easy things can be.

And we have a new rule in our company.

There’s nothing’s easy.

No customer’s easy.

It doesn’t matter, nothing’s easy because whenever you have a group of people try to accomplish a goal, it’s not easy.

And so whenever you oversimplify something, it’s just demo.

It’s just cabinets.

It’s just, you started to use the word just.

You might as well.

What is happening is the details that matter most to us as a company, they go out the window.

And we care so much about the details.

Again, those transitions between the slider door and going outside.

Most people don’t even understand that the track, I hate when the track is above the slab.

I want it to be cut and be flushed with the slab, right?

Those little details to me matter so much.

And to other people, maybe it doesn’t matter.

Yeah, and there’s one thing.

There’s a way to execute that and to get it to look that way.

There’s another whole level of design that comes into it still has to work and get rid of water.

So now you have to come in with a drainage plan to figure out, okay, where’s the water gonna go so it doesn’t go through my door?

It goes even deeper.

So now you know the specifics of how detailed you want things to be, but then you have to have logistics and common sense behind it and things that people don’t even know.

So the key is when you have a design build firm or have a team that understands these details, you do save so much unforeseen errors and money and time that it’s hard to put a price tag onto.

I just got an email yesterday that said, hey guys, I really enjoyed working with you guys, but we decided to go with a cheaper guy.

And in my mind, I’m going, ah, it sucks for us because we really wanted this job.

But at the same time, I thought, you know what?

They’re gonna pay for it regardless because we were so thorough on all the details and efforts and the other bid was not and other details were not.

And so my fear for them is that I’m like, oh, I hope they’re taken care of and I know they’re not gonna be as well because we know the little things that go into it.

And we’re not gonna change order a ton because we know that we have our details in place.

So we just started instituting the I told you so package that we send to a customer a few months after the start.

And so it’s the I told you so package.

But yeah, you really just wanna protect these people.

But the hard part is we used to be the company that would go, hey, let’s give them a bid.

Their plans suck.

Get your foot in the door.

Yeah, let’s give them a crap.

Their plans are terrible.

Let’s give them a really bad bid.

And we know it’s gonna be low, but we’re gonna change order.

And then we do that and they have a terrible experience.

And it’s just a lose-lose for everybody.

So for us, it’s we wanna protect our people.

And so it’s important for us to get all those details planned out, organized, give them actual bids so that we don’t just stronghold them when they’re in the middle of a project and going, oh yeah, by the way, you’re pushing me an extra $25,000.

And they’re going, well, why?

Well, because it didn’t say in your plans that your transition looked like this and this is what you want.

So I’m gonna charge you this.

And you’re like, well, isn’t that the right way to do it?

Well, it didn’t say in your plans, it’s your fault.

And then you’re like, well, wait a minute.

And technically the contractor’s right, but principle-wise, it’s not right.

Yeah, experience-wise, it’s a horrible experience.

We just had a conversation with Chris, our estimator, yesterday.

He spends a tremendous amount of time.

It’s not as simple as sending a subcontractor, a tile guy, a stucco guy, hey, here’s the plans.

Give me the number for this.

Correct.

It’s not that simple because those guys are busy.

They don’t always look at the plan.

And they send it back and they send you a number.

And sometimes that number doesn’t look right.

And so Chris takes time.

And it can be high, super high.

Super low.

Or super low, either one.

Because it can be super high because they’ve lost money in the past.

So they’re like, you know, I just wanna save money.

So I’m just gonna throw out a huge number.

Yeah, in this instance, the number seems too low.

And he’s like, dude, you forgot this area, this area, this area.

And he’s like, oh, crap.

Like those are all things that are important to vet the subcontractor bids, to really go through in detail and make sure they’re qualified.

And that they’ve covered all those quantities and areas.

That makes sense.

That’s a big effort on the estimator side.

That’s interesting.

So that one was too low.

And I’ve also seen stuff too high because the contractors get so busy, our subcontractors, that they don’t wanna lose money.

So they’ll just throw out a framing bid of like $15,000.

And you’re like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

The last project that you were on just cost seven.

Like what the hell had just happened?

And then you go to them, they’re like, oh yeah, sorry, I’ve just been busy.

And you’re like, oh my gosh, that could have cost my clients an extra seven grand.

So those are ways we’re able to protect our clients by being thorough on those details.

And you are at risk of getting an underbid as well, because if that number’s way off, when that subcontractor arrives to the job, and he looks at it and he’s like, oh crap, I’ve bid this wrong.

Or he just walks.

Or he just walks.

And it’s like, well, what about your contract?

You know, yeah, but some guys don’t care.

And sometimes they live hand to mouth and they don’t have the cushion to be able to take a job even that they’re gonna lose a large chunk on.

And if you go sue them, sue them for what?

Yeah, you can’t pump a dry well.

Yeah, exactly.

And so it’s very important when you’re aggregating a large project that you quantify and qualify those bits.

That you don’t just take them at what they’re telling you in the email.

Exactly, and that’s what our company does.

Our company is the power and the ability to have the knowledge, the staff, to be able to pay attention to those details to save money on the long run.

And because of the volume that we do, we’re able to really drive those prices down and give a good experience without changing the goalposts or moving the goalposts left and right and giving our customers a terrible experience.

So that’s all I have to say about that.

For next time, join us.