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NOW I find out I should have had a permit.

13 years ago

A recent post made me think. Over the past two years, we remodeled our master bathroom and kitchen. It was our first time doing this sort of thing, so I just depended on the GC. Long story short, we didn't have any permits, and judging from some of the changes we made, we should have. So what now? Will we have trouble when we go to sell?

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Comments (4)

stjamesb
13 years ago
it depends on where you live and whether your future buyers are going to care. Where we live (NJ), we didn't pull a permit for electrical work (did it ourselves and didn't know we had to pull a permit). When we got ready to sell, our realtor strongly advised us to pull a permit, because certain changes have to be disclosed on the disclosure form. We applied for a permit and my DH had to open the dry wall and other finishes for 2 inspection (rough and finish). For my town, there are no penalty for pulling a permit after the fact. When we bought our current house, we insisted that the work has to have permitted and inspected.
You probably will find similiar discussion on the renovation forum.
The upshot for us that we pulled a permit because we don't want hassle during selling.
The first thing is to check with your town about pulling permit after the fact and go from there.
glenster_jr
13 years ago
The last two times I sold a house I had to complete a Seller's Disclosure, in which they ask if there have been any renovations or additions made without "necessary permits or not in compliance with code(s)".
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Laurie
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I'm in the middle of just finding out that I need a permit for certain aspects of my renovation which I did not expect and, I shut my job down due to it. Better safe than sorry. I knew the subs would need them (electrical, plumbing) but had no idea that we'd need them for drywall for instance. As soon as I heard this, I stopped everything before the drywall could get up on the wall - in my town in NJ, they send inspectors out to look at the electrical and plumbing work before signing off on it and it would have been a disaster to have to a) pull it all down and b) not have the permit for it either!
riskaverse
13 years ago
Given that it is after the fact, I think that the most important thing is to remember to disclose all of this when selling. As long as you disclose, then you don't get in trouble for hiding things. Yes, if there are a lot of similar houses on the market and yours is the only one with unpermitted work, then buyers may walk. In our area, depending on the work that was done, it usually isn't an issue. Of course with older homes, buyers never really know what has happened 2 or 3 owners ago anyway. When we did our renovations, we disovered that the roof of the house had burned off in the early '70s. Someone in the line of disclosures failed to let that be known so that we got that disappointing surprise (of course, now WE have to disclose that upon selling...). Personally, if I were buying a house and the disclosures listed unpermitted work, I'd just make sure that I had extra careful inspections and then weigh the risks. After all, we thought we did everything right and we still ended up with a house with previous fire damage.

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