Contractors charging fees for pulling permits

[Dante Moore]

Is it customary for an electrician to charge a fee for pulling permit plus the cost of the permit?  

 I was sent a code violation for work that wasn’t completed 2 years prior to me purchasing the property. I called the original electrician and he stated he would renew the permit and have the property inspected. Now he says he can’t renew the original permit and to create a new permit he charges $500.00 to pull the new permit plus the cost of the permit. Is this a common practice amongst contractors? No work has to be done in this case. This is just closing out some bureaucratic nonsense that Baltimore City, Maryland has created.

[Russell Brazil]

Originally posted by @Will Fraser:

This is common among snakes.

 Snakes? So should the electrician work for free?