Lower Merion, PA Building Safety: Building Inspections (2026)

The Township's revisions to the Uniform Construction Code at § 143-8 add the twenty-four-hour notice requirement directly to the inspection provisions of the state code rather than creating a separate local inspection chapter. For residential construction, § 143-8C(9) amends UCC § 403.64(b) so inspections require that advance notice to the Construction Code Official; the commercial counterpart, § 143-8B(8), makes the identical amendment to § 403.45(c). The Code Official, who is the Director of the Department of Building and Planning under § 143-3A, keeps official records of inspections, permits and certificates issued as part of the department's public record-keeping duties under § 143-3B.

Related local amendments in the same § 143-8 package touch other stages of the inspection and permitting timeline: a grading permit applied for alongside a building permit can extend the standard fifteen-day (residential) or thirty-day (commercial) approval or denial window because the building permit cannot issue until the grading permit is approved, under § 143-8B(6) and § 143-8C(7). At the certificate-of-occupancy stage, § 143-8B(9) and § 143-8C(10) delete the requirement that the certificate list the permit holder's name and address. If the Code Official finds a violation during an inspection, the disregard of an unsafe notice or a stop-work order triggers enforcement under § 143-9, including the Township's authority to abate or restrain unlawful construction independent of any fine.