You’ve decided to build it yourself.
Don’t do it alone.
Flat monthly support for San Diego County owner-builders. You stay the builder of record, you hold every contract, and you keep the margin a general contractor would have taken. We bring the sequence, the paperwork discipline, and someone who picks up the phone.
No percentage of your build. No cut of your trades.
What blindsides owner-builders
Not the building. Almost nobody comes unstuck on the construction itself — they come unstuck on the four things nobody warned them about.
The inspection sequence
Footing, sub-slab plumbing, framing, insulation, drywall, final — each one has to pass before the next trade can start, and each one has a queue. Call for the wrong inspection and you lose a week. Call for the right one unprepared and you lose two.
The mail you don’t recognise
A few weeks in, preliminary notices start arriving from companies you’ve never spoken to — suppliers your framer bought from. They are a lien right in the post. If one arrives from a company you can’t place, someone is on your job you don’t know about.
Who you’re actually allowed to pay
Every trade needs an active licence in the right classification and their own workers’ comp. Pay someone who has neither and you have quietly become their employer — payroll, workers’ comp, Cal/OSHA, all of it. Most owner-builders learn this after something goes wrong.
Releasing money you can’t get back
Paying a draw without the matching unconditional lien release is how owner-builders get hurt worst. The work is done, the money is gone, and the lien is still enforceable against your property.
What you keep, what we bring
The split matters, and not only commercially. It’s what makes this legal.
You keep
- Builder of record — you pull the permit and sign as owner-builder
- Every contract, directly between you and each licensed trade
- Every payment, directly from you to them
- Every decision about who works on your property and when
- The general contractor’s margin, which on a build this size is not a small number
We bring
- The sequence — what has to happen before what, and which inspection gates it
- Licence and workers’ comp verification on every trade before you sign
- Bid review — what’s excluded, what’s missing, what that gap will cost later
- Lien release and preliminary notice tracking, so nothing gets released blind
- Inspection prep briefs before each one
- Site observation visits, written up as what we saw and what to ask
- Someone who answers when the concrete truck arrives early
Three tiers
Flat monthly, banded by project size — not a percentage of your build. Six-month minimum, then month-to-month. Permits stall and financing stalls, so you can pause once per project for up to 60 days.
Foundation
JADU, garage conversion, or up to 600 sq ft
For a smaller build where you mostly need the sequence and a second read on the paperwork.
- 1 site observation visit per month
- Monthly owner-builder roundtable
- 30 minutes of 1:1 call time per month
- Shared project workspace — trade directory, draws, prelim notices
- Licence and insurance verification on every trade you hire
- Bid review on up to 3 trades
- Lien release and preliminary notice tracking
- Inspection prep briefs
- Document templates you sign in your own name
- Self-serve schedule templates
- Response within 1 business day
Partner
Most commonDetached ADU, roughly 600–1,000 sq ft
The common case. A detached unit, a full trade list, and eight to twelve months of sequencing.
- 2 site observation visits per month
- Monthly owner-builder roundtable
- 60 minutes of 1:1 call time per month
- Shared project workspace — trade directory, draws, prelim notices
- Licence and insurance verification on every trade you hire
- Unlimited bid review
- Lien release and preliminary notice tracking
- Inspection prep briefs
- Document templates you sign in your own name
- We build your sequence plan — you run it
- Response within 4 business hours
Pro
1,000–1,200 sq ft, multi-unit, or a complicated site
For bigger or messier projects — multiple units, tight lots, or a site with real constraints.
- 4 site observation visits per month
- Monthly owner-builder roundtable
- Weekly 30-minute 1:1 call
- Shared project workspace — trade directory, draws, prelim notices
- Licence and insurance verification on every trade you hire
- Unlimited bid review, and we can circulate your scope to trades we know
- Lien release and preliminary notice tracking
- Inspection prep briefs
- Document templates, including an attorney-reviewed subcontract form
- We build your sequence plan and update it weekly — you run it
- Same business day response, plus phone access
Every tier starts with onboarding: a kickoff session, plan review, your first sequence plan, a trade list, and a budget baseline — all inside week one. It is a one-time fee on top of the monthly.
What it costs: we quote it on the fit call, once we’ve seen your plans and know which tier actually fits. Publishing a rate card would mean quoting you before we’ve looked at your project, and the honest number depends on things a form can’t tell us. What we will commit to here: it is a flat monthly fee, it is not a percentage of your build, and it is a fraction of what full construction management on the same project would cost.
Additional site observation visits beyond your tier’s allowance are billable. Feasibility studies, plan sets, permit expediting and Title 24 are separate services, quoted on their own.
What this service is, plainly
Casita Owner-Builder Support is an advisory service. You are the owner-builder and the builder of record. You contract directly with each licensed trade, and you pay them directly. Casita is not a party to those contracts and does not handle project funds at any point.
Casita does not perform construction and does not supervise construction. We do not hire, direct, accept, reject, stop, or pay any trade, and we do not sign documents on your behalf. Site visits are observation visits — we report what we saw to you. They are not inspections and they do not substitute for your building department’s inspections.
Nothing here is legal, insurance, or tax advice. Whether the owner-builder exemption fits your situation depends on facts we can’t assess for you, and some questions need a California construction attorney or your insurance broker.
What the CSLB says about services like ours
The Contractors State License Board tells homeowners to “be wary of ‘consultants’ or unlicensed individuals who will try to talk you into becoming an owner-builder as a way to save money.” They’re right, and we’d rather you read it here than find it later.
So: we don’t talk anyone into owner-building. If you haven’t already decided, this isn’t for you, and the fit call is where we say so. The warning is aimed at people who profit from putting an owner’s name on a permit while quietly running the job themselves. The test of whether that’s us is simple, and you can hold us to it: we never contract with your trades, never touch your money, and never sign anything for you.
What a month actually looks like
On the Partner tier, mid-build. Yours will move around with your schedule, but the rhythm holds.
Your sequence plan for the month lands, tied to the inspections you need to hit. We flag the two decisions that have to be made this month or they’ll hold up the trade behind them.
Site observation visit. Photos, what we saw, and a list of questions to put to your trades — phrased as questions, because you’re the one who talks to them. In your hands within 24 hours.
Inspection prep brief before your next one: what the inspector will look at, what commonly fails it in San Diego County, what to have on site. Any bids that came in get reviewed for exclusions and gaps.
Roundtable — an hour with the other owner-builders. Licences and comp certificates get re-checked, prelim notices matched against your trade list, and anything unmatched flagged before it becomes a problem.
The owner-builder roundtable
First Wednesday of the month, an hour, everyone in the program. Fifteen minutes on one topic — lien releases, a trade that stopped showing up, getting through inspection week. Thirty minutes of open floor. Fifteen on one member’s project, in detail.
It is the most useful hour in the program and it is the part nobody expects. You will hear what something actually cost someone three months ahead of you, before it costs you the same. Sessions are recorded and indexed by topic, so you can go back to the lien-release one when you need it.
What we track for you
Four running records, kept current, shared with you. These are the ones that cost real money when they slip.
Your trade directory
Every trade on your job, with their licence number, classification, licence status, bond, workers’ comp and general liability expiry dates. Re-checked, not checked once. A licence that lapses mid-build is a problem you want to hear about from us, not from an inspector.
Draws and lien releases
What’s scheduled, what’s been released, and which unconditional release is still outstanding against it. If you’re about to release money without the paperwork behind it, you get told before you send it, not after.
Preliminary notices
Every 20-day notice you receive, logged and matched against your trade list. Anything that doesn’t match a trade you know about gets flagged, because that’s the one worth chasing down.
Inspections
What’s scheduled, what passed, what came back with corrections and whether they’ve been cleared. Each one gets a prep brief beforehand.
Questions worth asking
What does it cost?
We quote it on the fit call, once we’ve seen your plans and know which tier actually fits. That’s not a dodge — it’s that the honest number depends on your project’s size and how complicated your site is, and a rate card would mean quoting you before anyone has looked at either. What we’ll commit to here: it’s a flat monthly fee plus a one-time onboarding fee, it is never a percentage of your build, and it is a fraction of what full construction management on the same project would cost. If the number doesn’t work for you, the call has cost you twenty minutes.
Am I actually allowed to do this?
California’s owner-builder exemption (B&P §7044) lets you build on property you own without a contractor’s licence, provided you do the work yourself or contract directly with properly licensed contractors. You pull the permit, you sign as owner-builder, and you take on the responsibilities that come with it. The CSLB’s own pages, linked below, are the plainest summary of what those are.
Is this construction management?
No, and the difference matters. A construction manager runs your job — schedules trades, directs the work, accepts or rejects it. We advise you and you run your job. You hold every contract, you make every call, and nothing happens on your site because Casita said so. If what you actually want is someone to run it, that is a different service and we would rather sell you that one than the wrong one.
What if I want to sell within a year of finishing?
Tell us on the fit call. The exemption limits building for sale, and if the structure sells soon after completion the burden falls on you to show it wasn’t built for sale. It does not automatically disqualify you, but it changes the risk and it is the kind of thing to get advice on early rather than discover at closing.
Do I need workers’ compensation insurance?
If everyone on your site is a licensed contractor carrying their own, generally no. The moment you pay someone who isn’t, you are likely their employer and the answer changes — that is a question for your insurance broker and, depending on the situation, an attorney. We will tell you when you are walking toward that line. We will not tell you which side of it you are on.
What happens when a trade doesn’t show up?
You call them, and we help you work out what it does to everything behind them. Resequencing is most of the job on a build like this. We cannot make your framer turn up — nobody can — but you will know within a day what it costs you and what to move.
Can I switch to full construction management later?
Yes, and some people should. If you get three months in and decide you would rather hand it over, tell us. There is no minimum-term trap here that makes it awkward to have that conversation.
Do you hire or pay my subcontractors?
No. Never. Every contract runs directly between you and each licensed trade, and every payment goes directly from you to them. Casita is not a party to any of it and does not handle your money at any point. That is not a policy preference — it is what keeps this a legal advisory service rather than unlicensed contracting.
Book a fit call
Twenty minutes, no charge. We’ll tell you which tier fits, what your next three months look like, and — if owner-building is the wrong call for your project — we’ll tell you that too.