You better think again!  I recently closed an escrow on a home that had to be tented and fumed for termites.  One of the repairs that the termite company had to do was to replace the a shower pan in one of the bathrooms.  Typically the termite company will do their best to match the tile in the shower with the existing tile.  In this situation the buyer said he was going to re-tile the entire bathroom so he asked that the termite company simply replace the pan and he would do the tile work later.

Weeks later I get a call from the buyer telling me he had a Glendale city inspector out to the house on another issue.  The inspector noticed the new shower pan and asked if the buyer had obtained a permit.  The buyer explained that it was replaced during escrow by the termite company.  The inspector said that there needed to be a permit for the shower pan and if there was no permit pulled then it would need to be torn out and replaced and done so with a permit.  The termite company said they obtained permits for the fume and that they subcontract the shower pan out to another contractor.  The city of Glendale will not allow the termite company to pull a permit for the shower pan and has insisted that the person they sub the work out to pull the permit.  The termite company said in all of the years they have been doing this they have not pulled a permit for  shower pan!    We are still trying to resolve this issue with the city and the termite company.  All of this over a little shower pan! 

The moral to the story is, always check to see if you need to get a permit!  Click here to read more about the pitfalls of not getting a permit.