Remodeling without a permit

[SouthAfricanHorn]

I'm looking to buy a house that in 1999 had extensive remodeling- doubled the size of the house. HOWEVER, the owners for whatever reason didn't get permits for the remodel.

Am I at risk for anything now or in the future by purchasing the home without any of the permits? Please help!

 

[accuratehorn]

Yes, the new addition is not on the tax roll, so the official size of the house is what it was originally. The owner cannot ask the full price of the addition, and you should not pay it. The new addition can be called bonus space, or bonus rooms, but it can't be priced per square foot like the rest of the house.
The city could come in and require it to be removed, although this would be rare. They could require inspections, or different wiring.
You will have the same problem when you want to sell it, so don't pay full price per square foot for the additional space.
They screwed up, not you.

 

[NCAAFBALLROX]

You can also be in LARGE trouble if you purchase the house & it's exceeded the 'buildable space' (known as Impervious Cover).

The property will more than likely be re-surveyed & should be if it's been added onto by square footage in footprint. The mortgage co. will want this as well; usually, if a property is being resold within a few years of a prior mortgage or re-fi that also required a survey, you can re-use the old one... ask your realtor to look into this for you (or your title co. or financing source; not sure who is the help on that one).

What would be best for you is if you purchased @ the reduced rate as noted in the prior post, then filed with the city to recognize the added square footage (don't do this if you're above the impervious coverage %age) & then if you ever resold, you'd be able to 'declare' the added size.

Be aware that your taxes will probably also go up in comparison to the prior estimates & the city should possibly want to know when the addition was made because they may want to collect on the prior years' worth of added size they were missing out on.

 

[SouthAfricanHorn]

Thanks for the responses. We ended up putting a revision in the contract requiring the owners to get the necessary permits before we agree to the purchase. We'll see what happens. They're probably looking at $40K in back taxes.

 

[bluto]

the back taxes are just the start assuming the city makes them bring it up to code (and the odds of it being current are not very good if they owe 40K in back taxes)

 

[accuratehorn]

It might not be noticed if they just improved the garage or made a back room out of the back porch-but doubling the size of the house with a major addition-you just can't do that.

 

[SouthAfricanHorn]

For a number of reasons I'm fairly confident the addition was built to code. The thought from our perspective is that they just didn't want to pay the taxes so they didn't get a permit. From what we learned today, getting the permit shouldn't be too hard if they have the arch drawings. The taxes are definitely going to be the biggest obstacle. We'll see what the attorney says today... keeping my fingers crossed the news is good....

 

[Statalyzer]

Good ol' friendly government....