Fayette County, GA Building Safety: Building Permits (2026)

Fayette County Code § 102-192 sets the baseline rule for the county's Department of Building Safety, formally the department of permits and inspections: before an owner or authorized agent starts construction, enlargement, alteration, repair, moving, demolition, or a change of occupancy of a building or structure, or before installing, altering or replacing an electrical, gas, mechanical or plumbing system regulated by the building code, the owner or agent has to file an application with the building official and obtain the permit. If a licensed contractor does the work anyway without pulling the required permit, the code creates a rebuttable presumption that the contractor willfully and deliberately violated the county's building laws, shifting the burden onto the contractor to explain the lapse.

Once issued, a permit does not last indefinitely. Code § 102-196 makes a permit invalid if the authorized work is not commenced within 180 days of issuance, or if work that has started is then suspended or abandoned for 180 days; a minimum of one approved inspection is required as proof that work began or continued. The building official can grant one 180-day extension, but only if the applicant requests it in writing with justifiable cause before the permit expires and no changes have been made to the approved plans; no permit can be extended more than once, and an extension costs half the fee of a new permit for that work.