Our HVAC company pulled permits for our geothermal. They subsequently forgot to get a final. About a year later, the city called us and the contractor called us in a panic. Sent inspector out - he was VERY cool - says that "I suspect this is all okay, since it's been running well for a year" and then proceeded to talk to my husband for an hour about the race cars in the basement.

they actually tell you that you need a permit to replace a water heater. Um no - I am not doing that - we can do that ourselves.

I guess if I was really "changing" out a system, or moving plumbing or electrical, I'd get a permit, but otherwise not really. And not 100% sure I would if I was doing it all myself.

We got a permit for our 1000 sq ft addition, SE Michigan. Although it makes me kinda-sorta mad that I would have to pay $10 K for a MUA so I can get a rangehood cfm >300. You would think there would be some grandfathering of homes built prior to energy efficient/air tight era of home building, or at the very least some alternative/less expensive choices. My original house was built in 1952, plenty of cold air drafts yet I am too chicken to go without a MUA because of city code. Because once you open the door to even the remotest possibility of CO poisoning/bursting water pipes blah blah blah, we just didnt want to take the smallest chance.

Another issue : our lot is weirdly shaped and because of a clearance requirement we had to give up a full bath downstairs and settle for a half bath instead. Initially, I was ok with that rule but then I found out that for unstated reasons the neighborhood next to us, built around the same time has a different/smaller clearance requirement . Makes me a little worked up just writing about it. Although my GC is to blame a bit for it becos he forgot to mention that we could have petitioned the city to change the requirement.

Building a new house so of course all has to be permitted.

In our condo remodel 7 years ago, condo requires all permits pulled so yes, we were permitted.

In my two houses, we never pulled permits, but then again in both homes we never did anything major except put up a few walls.

Permitting is funny business and very regional. I've done lots of work without permits. I've had plumbers refuse to come without a permit. Went to sell a house with an unpermitted basement. Caused a lot of stress but in the end, we sold it without issue. Lots of people claim it is a big issue in our area, but for us it was no big deal.

The problem with permitting is that it can be expensive - like in CA probably. It can lead to onerous requirements - CA for sure. We didn't permit our basement mostly because I was the GC and our local jurisdiction wanted me to take a course on how to be a GC. Onerous enough for me. Then there was the insulation requirements which didn't differentiate between underground walls and above ground walls - like they see the same temperature differential.

I've done a kitchen before and that is pretty easy. Sure you are moving plumbing and electrical around but not huge amounts. But technically, anything more than changing a light bulb usually requires a permit. Changing a gas range out - permit required.

We will. After a lengthy discussion on the topic with DH, I put my foot down and said no way without permits. I worry about fire and insurance coverage, and although we don't plan to sell for decades, life happens. I don't want to run into problems down the road selling the house, or worse yet, something going wrong because it was done wrong.

I got permits, and I'm in California. I just wasn't comfortable with being the only one checking the GC's work. I was surprised by how many GCs told me they didn't get permits. Unpermitted work is very common here and not a major detriment to sales. Though I will not be self-righteous about it because I have a 625 cfm hood without MUA (no gas appliances in the house and leaky old windows) and plan to remove the air gap.

My main sticking point was lead based paint removal. I would have slept soundly working with someone who followed EPA procedures and not the stricter (too strict?) CA procedures. But it was all or nothing. Which I think is the problem with some of the regulations in CA, where the regulations are so strict that people just blow them off entirely rather than following a common-sense middle ground.

We pulled permits, or rather our GC did, which met our expectations that permits would be pulled and inspections would happen.

In a previous home, that I still own, we did not pull permits. I am planning on putting the house on the market next year and I am hoping it will not bite me in the butt.

We looked at a house in our area a few years ago. We didn’t get it at the time, but a friend of ours did. When they built a larger house nearby they offered us first crack at it. We didn’t like the notifications they had made to it, so we said no thanks. Well, during this final sale, it turned out that the house was never permitted in the first place by the original builder, and the county forced them to tear all it down! I am very careful about permits now.

Also in CA and permits are mostly all about the revenue they bring in. We built a good size guest/carriage house and we pulled all the required permits.

I did not pull permits for bathrooms that stayed with the same layout, but had cosmetic changes with new tiles, fixtures & lights.

Doing my kitchen next and will have to decide which way to go. No structural changes, just cosmetics and the only thing moving will be a water line moved a few feet from the old fridge location to the new fridge location.

When we remodeled our entire first floor, including the kitchen of our former home, we pulled permits. Our city requires permits for any work costing over $500. In hindsight, I would not have stated the estimated cost of construction as high as I did.

We now live in a 55+ development that has an architectural review committee. Even though the by-laws of our association state that any interior works needs to be approved by ARC, the committee is only worried about exterior work. I know people have installed whole house generators, removed and relocated bathtubs and showers, and added full basement finished rooms, all without permits.

DH is running for City Council. I'm abiding the city ordinances.

I'm a rule follower so we'll have permits to repair our flood damage. Even if I weren't, I have NO desire to tempt fate with the city or rely on a GC to make sure things are done to code. I'm tired. I'll work w/ them and ask questions but an inspector's stamp will be on the house.

I'm going to pay for an attorney to look over the contract, too. The Remodeling board has been an eye-opener.

Just a thought since it is a recurring theme. Code inspectors check what they check and they are absolutely no guarantee on quality. So don't be fooled that permits equal quality.

First, I agree with jln333, code inspectors don't catch every issue, and depending on which one you get, they may focus on issues that have nothing to do with safety, just their interpretation of a code. At best, they spend a few minutes looking around, so even the best ones won't catch everything. Second, if you are changing the number of square feet of your property, or changing an unconditioned space to conditioned, or adding a bath, in most places, if you fail to get a permit, when you go to buy your house, the potential buyer may balk because the town - city says your house has x square feet of heated and cooled space, y baths, and z bedrooms. OTOH, I doubt the city keeps track of exactly where in your kitchen your range is located, nor the style of cabinets, so much less likely that will be picked up by a potential buyer.

Barry, but a potential buyer would want to know that the kitchen is X years old and not X + 15 years old.

For any future buyers, I have all the invoices for labor and materials, design layouts done by an interior designer and kitchen designer, and the state license number of the GC's that did the work, so at least they will know that it wasn't a flip-type update.

A regular here knows that nothing is a guarantee in reno/build. I like the notion of layers of oversight. The city won't make me tear out work if I have that stamp and if there's a problem, it protects me in a variety of ways.

Too much $$$ invested to risk it tearing it out or expensive fixes. You'll have to provide proof of permitting to increase value for insurance purposes.

I've pulled permits for improvement we've made to our house: replacement windows, new roof, replace the deck, remodel the kitchen. A friend is an engineer for the city, and it's nice to have her approval/opinion on contractors I've selected.

The city we've moved to is very serious about permits. When you go to sell, the city turns up and anything not permitted gets dealt with. That can be anywhere from pulling permits and paying hefty fines to tearing whatever it is out. Local GCs are not down with bypassing the permitting process.

I can guarantee I won't get all the permits required. It's impossible here. I found out much later that when my roof was replaced and they found unexpected rot, the roofing company was supposed to stop all work and leave my house without a roof until the sheathing replacement permit was allowed.

Really.

That obviously didn't happen.

I can't legally fix a wiggly railing on an exterior stair here without a BUILDING permit.

@akrogirl. Wow, I'm sure you're glad you didn't buy the house.

@chispa, yes I agree that for some city, it's about the revenue. For sure with my city since the permit is 5% of your total remodeling costs. In addition, they demand a list of the subs along with their contact info so they can charge a fee to do work in the city.

The city next door is more focus on encouraging updates so they have a flat $120 fee that covers everything.

Beachem, that would anger me so much that I wouldn't pull permits.

We gutted our house down to studs and plywood and yes permits were pulled. We didn't take quotes from anyone who wasn't or who told us that they weren't necessary. I'm glad we had it done because it turned out we had to apply for a variance which we didn't realize at the time. The GC knew but we didn't . It was worth it and actually quite painless.

Of course we pulled all the permits, with gut remodel and addition, in CA. and no reputable GC would have it done otherwise. And we spoke with maybe six or seven.

You have a shell of the house with studs inside-studs only- and boldly blue colored port-a-potty next to it for year and a half (we were hoping for a different time line but it was what it was)..it's really hard to see for me how one can swing it without puling permits

some requirements were laughable and highly itrritating

on the other hand, knowing our drywall guys..it gave me some piece of mind somebody came and counted 52 nails in each piece of drywall..

since they never arrived to work not being high on something..

they were fired after our job, but that's another story

whatever could be grandfathered in we grandfathered in, no problem

but yes we pulled all the permits and yes we passed all six inspections that are required here

if it was some smaller inside job like a bathroom with no major changes I'd think differently

but that scarecrow of the neighborhood? lol. no.

We pulled permits for our seismic retrofit, deck/outdoor room expansion, and addition of a bathroom and kitchen to a previously semi-unfinished basement. We didn't for the two existing bathrooms we redid, nor for the kitchen reno. I'm not terribly thrilled about it, but our property taxes are already insane and there was only so much DH was willing to let the city know we'd done.

When I had to get a new hot water heater in late June (two days before leaving for a 4+ wk vacation!), I had no idea the plumber (one I had never before used) pulled a permit. Imagine my surprise when a couple of weeks ago I got a card in the mail from the inspector with detailed instructions on how to call for an app't to have my new hot water heater inspected. He was here less than 3 minutes and said that many plumber do not pull permits, which are actually required. No one knows.

When we did major remodeling 32 years ago (full dormer on back of house, new bath, new HVAC - the works), we had to have permits pulled. When we did other work 18 years ago, no permit was required.

BUT...this is a VERY regional thing! In CA, God help you if a permit isn't pulled and you try to sell a house. A friend's daughter lives on Long Island and when they sold their first house, they were required to tear off the deck that the PREVIOUS owners had put on the house - no permit and their inspector didn't catch that. So, old one had to come off, then new one permitted and built again. VERY expensive.

It's just easier in the long run to do things the proper way.

We generally get the permits needed for anything big. The small stuff, we don't worry about.

I wish we didn't need to for this kichen reno. But, we're building a mudroom into part of the garage, so we have to permit that. We are also taking down non-load bearing walls in the house. At least the inspectors we've dealt with in the last year for other projects have all been great. (DH wishes they would inspect his work more closely sometimes!) They've given advice and even a consult on whether the walls are load bearing. The worst part is the raising of property taxes, for sure!

Yes, permits were pulled.

Another Calif. resident here. Yes, permits are a pain. Yes, they are expensive in my part of the universe (and everywhere, really). Yes, I pulled 'em! I wouldn't even consider a contractor who doesn't pull permits. It makes me wonder what else they weren't doing. Great discussion!

New house, so legal all the way. I've heard too many horror stories of being fined or back-taxed after the fact, and insurance companies are getting in on the act, too. If they can 'prove' that work that was done without a permit caused the loss, they can weasel out of coverage.

Our building department is a breeze to work with, permits are cheap, and inspections are cursory at best. They didn't even come out to do the final electric on the barn- they literally phoned it in!

We have lived in both Florida and Washington, DC and they have vastly different views to permitting. Washington, DC was historically the wild west, while in florida you can't look at a house without needing a permit.

We did a moderate renovation in Coral Gables, FL 5 years ago, including replacing all windows with hurricane windows, new kitchen and converting a carport to a garage. Everything was permitting. However, our neighbors saw a city inspector snooping in our backyard once at 3 in the morning!! Looking for a potential violation! Florida is the real deal about permits.

Historically, no one pulled permits for anything in DC proper. But there were several high profile news stories five years ago about the crazy real estate boom and flipped properties where the buyers bought into disasters - bad roofs, leaking windows, fire hazards galore - and none of it was done to permit. So it has become a new thing to start asking for permits when buying real estate in DC. This is all new in the last 5 years. We did a large reno in DC 3 years ago, all permitted, and lo - the buyers asked for permits and architectural plans.

We are currently renovating a condo in Miami, FL - just a basic reno of kitchen, 1 bathroom and new floors, in advance of selling it. We got permits and HOA approval for everything. When he was (legally, with permits, and during legal hours) jackhammering out the existing tile floors, a retired neighbor complained about the noise. She was so furious that she called the city and complained about unpermitted work the PREVIOUS owner had done that we didn't know about. I gather the previous owner had done all kinds of stuff unpermitted -- not necessarily unsafe -- and the city required us to submit full plans of the current state of the condo and make any changes they require. Architect cost $5000 and the whole process took about six months and an additional $30,000 in repairs, permits and inspections to come into code. One of the things was the toilet was 4 inches too close to the shower. The only way to make it work was to redo the whole bathroom. My GC is again jackhammering the bathroom to get to code, and the neighbor complains again! This time to the condo board! I wrote a terse letter back to the board that if the neighbor hadn't been such a nit to complain six months ago about our LEGAL work then we would have been done ages ago. And saved ourselves $35,000. Board was apologetic, agreed we were doing everything appropriately, and said she is a bit grumpy. Suffice to say, i will never reno a condo in florida again....

I am CA and I think permitting is a very local thing. Our city is very strict, so everything we do requires permit, even cutting non-protected trees in our backyard requires permit. A friend of mine in another city had an emergency plumbing repair and her city came out to give her a citation for no permit. i would think if you are doing any additional square feet, it makes sense to get a permit. otherwise if you sell your house later, you have to disclose the work was done without permit, which can affect resale values.

Yes, we always pull permits. The house around the corner from us (a summer cabin in the mountains) did not pull permits when they added a 2nd story addition. When the town found out the entire house was torn down. It is now just an abandoned foundation. Expensive lesson to learn. Of course, that is in an area where most renovations start with the words "Here, hold my beer..."

Yes we always pull permits. Honestly it protects you and your home although they can be a total PITA. It's just better to stay above the board and on the books in general in my opinion.

We pulled permits but haven't had the final inspection done.