Murrieta building permits

Tips & gotchas

• THE CITY ASKS YOU TO TELL IT THAT YOUR OWN STATUTORY CLOCK IS RUNNING. "For projects that have mandated timelines to follow for Plan Review, please send an email... to make us aware that the project has been submitted", and "Failure to send the follow-up email may result in extended timelines." A state-mandated review period is an obligation on the agency, and here the practical trigger is an email from the applicant. Whatever the legal position, the operational advice is unambiguous: send the email, include the address and the project number, and keep a copy.
• THE 15-DAY NUMBER IS A COMPLETENESS CHECK AND NOT A PLAN REVIEW, WHICH IS EASY TO READ WRONG. "Permit Processing for completeness check is approximately 15 business days" - three working weeks before anyone confirms your submittal is even reviewable, with plan review still ahead of it. A reader comparing this against Roseville's "approximately 3 weeks for first review" or Santa Rosa's published table would be comparing two different stages of the process.
• YOUR APPOINTMENT IS WITH A NAMED PERSON AND THE WRONG ONE IS REFUSED: "Selecting a permit tech that is not assigned to your project will result in a declined appointment." Four technicians each publish their own booking link. This record deliberately does not list their names - assignments and staff change, and a stale name in a guide sends someone to a declined appointment.
• SOLAR INSPECTIONS ARE MORNINGS ONLY, WITH NO CHOICE IN IT: "All Solar inspections will be conducted during the AM hours." Everywhere else in this corpus the AM/PM split is a preference; here one trade is fixed to one half of the day.
• THREE STRIKES COSTS MONEY, AND A LATE CANCELLATION IS A STRIKE: "On residential inspections only: 3 failed inspections or late same-day cancellations will result in a re-inspection fee." Antioch charges a re-inspection fee on the FIRST failure caused by missing paperwork; Murrieta gives residential work two failures of grace and then charges. Two neighbouring counties, two different bargains.
• BOOKING IS ONLINE-ONLY BUT SAME-DAY CANCELLING IS A PHONE CALL: "inspections are no longer scheduled over the phone or at the counter", yet "To cancel the inspection the day of call the Building Department (951) 461-6062." The asymmetry matters more here than elsewhere because a late cancellation can trigger the re-inspection fee - so the slower channel is the one guarding the penalty.
• THE 4:00 PM CUT-OFF IS NEW AND DATED: "Effective January 1, 2026, inspection requests will be cut-off times at 4:00 PM each day." Anyone working from pre-2026 habits has lost the late-afternoon booking window, and the city spells out the consequence - a request after 4:00 PM "will not be scheduled for the following business day."
• THE CODE CHANGE IS TIED TO THE SUBMITTAL DATE, NOT THE PROJECT: "As of 1/1/2026 the newly adopted 2025 California Building Codes went into affect... all new submittals moving forward will be subject to the 2025 Building Codes." A design prepared under the 2022 codes and submitted after that date is submitted against the 2025 codes.
• TWO FEE SCHEDULES ARE PUBLISHED ON THE SAME PAGE and the linked PDF is named for the older one - "FY 25/26 Fees- Starting July 1, 2025" sits above a "2024/2025 Fee Schedule (Active 7/1/24)", while the fee link filename reads 2024-25-Comprehensive-User-Fee-Schedule. The FY 25/26 schedule is current by its own effective date, but the naming makes it easy to quote the superseded one.
• NO SUBMITTAL WITHOUT AN APN: "a new submittal must have an address and an APN for the Building Department to review the plans." On new subdivisions and recently split parcels the assessor's parcel number can lag the address, and this is the kind of prerequisite that stops a submittal before anyone looks at the drawings.
• LICENCE EXPIRY DATES GO ON THE APPLICATION: "City Business License and State Contractor License information and expiration dates must be present on applications at the time of applying for permits." Both licences, both numbers, both dates - and the city business licence is required at application, as it is in Richmond at registration.
• THE FINAL INSPECTION HAS A PAPERWORK PRECONDITION: "All final project documents must be submitted digitally before final inspections." Arriving at the final with documents in hand is arriving too late.
• THE CITY PUBLISHES ITS 2026 CLOSURE DATES IN FULL - 2/16, 5/25, 7/3, 9/7, 11/11, 11/26 and 11/28, 12/24 and 12/25, 12/31 and 1/1/2027. Worth reading against the inspection cut-off, since a request on a non-working day does not buy the next business day.