Case: the customer who doesn't want a permit
In one paragraph
A homeowner wants a subpanel and six circuits for a garage workshop, has a quote from someone who will do it without a permit for $900 less, and asks Andre Petrosyan to match it. Andre does not argue; he says the one sentence the statute gives him, hands over the options sheet with the permit fee as a line item, and explains what the customer is actually buying with the fee: an inspector's signature that follows the house. The customer hires the other guy. Two years later the house is in escrow, the buyer's inspector finds the unpermitted subpanel, and the seller's agent calls Andre to 'legalize' it. The names are invented; the sections are real.
The rule
A written permit must be obtained from the enforcing agency before the installation or alteration of any electrical system in housing, with only the four listed exemptions (2025 CEC 89.108.4.1), and the work must remain exposed until inspected and approved (89.108.4.4). Willful or deliberate disregard of any state or local law relating to the issuance of building permits is a cause for disciplinary action against the contractor's license (B&P 7110(h)). A CSLB complaint about a patent act may be filed within four years (7091(a)).
Why it matters
You will be asked to skip the permit more often than you will be asked anything else, always by someone who thinks they are doing you a favor. The statute makes the answer yours, not the customer's, and the case shows the conversation that keeps the customer's respect while losing the job, and the phone call that comes two years later from the same house.