Apply for building permit w/o a license/architecture experience?

[Paul Ellerbusch]

I own land in Costilla County, Colorado. I know that building codes and permitting requirements vary by jurisdiction, but do you need a license of any kind to apply for a residential building permit? There are so many blueprints on line for free and I want to use those to sketch my own home design. Has anyone done this before? Do permitting officials need to see a licensed contractor, architect, structural engineer, etc produced the blueprints?

[Nik Moushon]

That is the trap with online plans that most people don't know. Once you purchase the set of plans you have to take them to an architect or engineer to review for local codes and then get stamped and submitted. They also never include a site plan. The original deisgner of those plans does a design based on where they are. It could be Florida for example and if you want to build it in Colorado....I doubt they took into consideration the kind of snow loads required in CO. They also rarely include structural calcs. Which the city wants to see.

Also, architects and engineers HATE doing these types of reviewing and permitting of plans bought online. They are very time consuming and put a lot of liability on them for stamping them, even though they didnt design them. So if you find one that will do it, odds are, they are charging you just as much as if they were to design a new house for you from scratch. My suggestion would be to just go find a local architect and pay the money to have them design and do a set of plans for you. It doesn't have to be a custom design. It could be a copy/paste of something they already have done. So it would be cheap as well. 

Lastly, no plans online are truly "FREE". Every house design you see is copyrighted by the designer/architect. So if you do end up getting a full free set of construction documents, which I highly doubt you actually can, you are indeed stealing. You can be caught and taken to court. Don't be a penny pinching idiot...just pay for the services you need.