Sumter County, SC Building Safety: Building Permits (2026)

Sumter County Code Sec. " Subsection (b) carves out a limited exception: no permit is required for work an owner performs personally, or through a full-time employee or defined family member, or for a public utility or government agency doing its own service work. But that exception never covers a contractor, subcontractor, or builder hired by the owner, and it never applies to a builder, developer, or contractor building for resale. The Building Board of Adjustments and Appeals can waive the family-member limitation only where actual hardship is shown.

Subsection (c) conditions any owner-performed work on the Building Director first verifying the owner's working knowledge of the construction involved; an owner who cannot show that knowledge must hire a licensed contractor to pull the permit instead. Subsection (d) requires the applicant present a valid state license, if the state requires one, or an existing county license, and pay the required fee before the permit issues. Sec. 8-19 adopts the 2006 International Building Code and 2003 International Residential Code as the governing construction standards, and Sec. 8-23 applies this permitting article to all unincorporated areas of the county, excluding land owned by the state or federal government.