Penalty Fees Approved for Construction Permits and Contractor Licenses

BROOMALL–A construction worker or contractor working at a home or business in will have to think twice before beginning work. At a Board of Commissioners meeting on Jan. 9, the commissioners unanimously approved two ordinances that will penalize anyone who fails to obtain the respective permit or license.

The commissioners called to adopt ordinance #2012-2 to establish a penalty for failure to obtain a required construction permit as outlined in the ordinance which shall be a fine or penalty of 100 percent of the cost of the required permit as well as the cost of the permit fee.

Ordinance #2012-3 was also adopted, which states to establish a penalty for failure to obtain a required contractor's license as outlined in the ordinance which shall be a fine added to the annual license fee.

"This is to make sure that everyone gets the permits. It only goes to help us, help you making sure that the construction is up to code," said Anthony Hamaday, Marple Township manager.

According to Hamaday, the amendment previously stated that the penalty fee was $25 and 25 percent of the total cost of the permit fee which will now increase to 100 percent.

Failure to obtain a contractor's license will result in a $100 fine plus the cost of the license, said Hamaday.

"This is an ordinance that sets a penalty for those contractors coming to the township and doing work without registering or having a contractor's license," explained Hamaday. "Again, this will try to help prevent those contractors trying to do some work very quickly who are unlicensed or unregistered, and also to try to protect our residents from hiring those contractors."

Board of Commissioners Vice President John Lucas also commented that both of these ordinances were beneficially implemented in order to protect the residents of th township.

"I just want to point out that both of those ordinances–the reason behind both of those ordinances is that this board is ensured that our residents are not taken fly-by-night contractors, who come in to do the work on Saturday when this office is pretty much closed," said Lucas. "This is why we now have a code enforcement fellow driving through the township on Saturdays to look specifically for these particular situations. It's an effort to help our residents."

According to Hamaday, an additional code enforcement employee was hired to specifically look for these instances where unlicensed and unregistered construction companies or contractors were doing work up to code.