Is the franchisee responsible for obtaining required permits for a Big Blue Swim School?

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Pre-Opening Assistance

Before you begin operating the School, we will (directly or through a third party):

• 1. Provide various real estate services. (Franchise Agreement—Section 4; Development Rights Agreement—Section 5) These services do not include conforming the School's premises to local ordinances and building codes obtaining required permits, for which you will be responsible. The School always will be developed at your expense.
• 1. Offer Small Business Administration loan-expeditor services if you apply for SBA-assisted financing.
• 1. You must locate, evaluate, and select each School's site. You must give us all information and materials we request to assess each proposed School site. We will not search for or select the site for you. However, using local commercial real estate brokers, we may propose potential School sites for your consideration in your Site Selection Area (under the Franchise Agreement) or Territory (under the Development Rights Agreement). Proposal of a School's site will be based on our then-current criteria for BIG BLUE Swim School sites, including population density and other demographic characteristics, visibility, traffic flow, competition, accessibility, ingress and egress, size, and other physical and commercial characteristics.

We will review potential BIG BLUE Swim School sites that you identify within the Territory and may, but have no obligation to, visit the Territory once (for no additional fee) to review potential sites for each BIG BLUE Swim School to be constructed and developed under the DRA. We have the right to require you to reimburse our out-of-pocket expenses for each site visit after the first per-Swim School visit. We have the right to condition our acceptance of a proposed site, or a proposed site visit, on your first sending us complete site reports and other materials (including photographs and digital recordings) we request. We agree to use reasonable efforts to review and accept (or not accept) sites you propose within 30 days after we receive all requested information and materials. You may not proceed with a site that we have not accepted.

We will not unreasonably withhold our acceptance of a site if, in our experience and based on the factors outlined above, the proposed site is not inconsistent with sites that we regard as favorable or that otherwise have been successful sites in the past for BIG BLUE Swim Schools. However, we have the absolute right to reject any site not meeting our criteria or to require you to acknowledge in writing that a site you prefer is accepted but not recommended due to its incompatibility with certain factors that bear on a site's suitability as a location for a BIG BLUE Swim School. You must evaluate and ultimately approve the selection of the School's site. (Franchise Agreement—Section 4.B;

Development Rights Agreement—Section 5) We do not own locations for lease to franchisees. Under the DRA, we first must accept each new site you propose for each new BIG BLUE Swim School. Our then-current standards for sites will apply.

Source: Item 11 — FRANCHISOR'S ASSISTANCE, ADVERTISING, COMPUTER SYSTEMS, AND TRAINING (FDD pages 37–51)