Rent commencement is tied to a permit you do not control.
The work letter set your date and the base building set your conditions; the permit sits between them. That gap is ours to work, asbestos survey and base-building alarm test included — neither is your scope, and both are your problem.
Call and talk to a permit specialist — scoped to offices & tenant fit-out.
What your projects run into
- Interior alteration and fit-out permits
- Demolition permit for the existing suite
- Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing trade permits
- Sprinkler relocation and fire alarm device permits
- Egress, occupant load, and demising wall review
- Asbestos survey and abatement notification in older buildings
- Energy code compliance documentation
- Certificate of occupancy for the suite
- Sidewalk, dumpster, and public space permits
Where the time goes
- A rent commencement date pegged to permit issuance in a building whose asbestos survey nobody has run
- A sprinkler drawing routed to a separate fire protection review after the architectural set is already approved
- A suite that cannot get its occupancy sign-off until the base building's alarm test happens on someone else's schedule
Each of those is days or weeks on a calendar you don't control. Handled early, most of them never happen.
We are not the landlord's construction manager. We file for the tenant, and base-building conditions that hold your permit get named in writing rather than absorbed.
Straight answers
Does an office fit-out need a permit?
Almost always, because the parts that trigger one are the parts every fit-out has. Where that line sits is a county answer rather than a code answer, and a scope that filed clean in one building can draw a full review across the street. Make that call before the rent clock starts, not after the drawings go out to bid.
Who pulls the permit, the landlord or the tenant?
Whoever holds the construction contract, which is usually the tenant's contractor. The application still runs against the landlord's building, so base-building items — alarm, sprinkler, occupant load — can hold a tenant permit. That gets settled in the work letter, not at the counter.
How long does a tenant fit-out permit take?
Weeks, and longer once fire protection review runs separately from architectural review. What moves the date is how many comment cycles the set draws, and that is settled before it is ever filed.
Call and talk to a permit specialist
(240) 344-5075Ten minutes on your project. You leave with the permits and licenses it needs, in order, with the clocks that run on each.