What risks come beside buying a house that have have deeply of remodeling done minus permit? During my home inspection we discovered that a staircase did not have...
During my home inspection we discovered that a staircase did not have required helearance. It was at 5' 11" not 6'6". We discovered that this staircase be added without a permit. The attic space be converted to a loft, bed and bath... Also no permits. A bathroom be added downstairs, a skylight was put in another bathroom, an attached storage shed be built... All with no permits. Because sqaure footage be added to the house it should have been changed next to the county accesors office because the taxes would be affected. Is this going to trigger an I inspection of some helpful that could make us have to go and get the non permitted work approved or removed? The house is a short sale that must close within 2 weeks or it go into forclosure so we don't have a lot of time. There is no room for negotiation to enjoy any repairs done. We either buy the house as is or we don't buy it... I want this house so bad. What problems could I facade down the road?
Oh Lord...where on earth to begin.
I live in a 1880 year matured house that had been within the family for 80 plus years. There had be a lot of work done on this place too without permit, so I can give you some first hand wisdom of what to expect.
A lack of permits usually finances two things.
First is that the work probably wasn't done by someone licensed (or possibly even skilled) to do the job. In many communities, homeowners are allowed to do their own remodel work including plumbing & electricity.
Secondly, a nouns of permits means that an inspector never come around to see if the job was done right. This is specially scary, especially when the homeowner did the remodel!
Some of the problems we encountered:
1) Improper electricity electrics, substandard wiring, not enough outlets, not ample service to the box, and frequent shorts. Our electrical horror story? When remodeling an upstairs bedroom, we discovered it had been wired using a braided extension cord that have been wrapped around the roof trusses.
2) Irregular plumbing, plumbing not to code. Another horror story ~ a sewer pipe that wasn't installed to the proper grade and kept protection up in the basement.
3) Headers not installed above doors, arch ways, extra window. When we gutted our family room for a remodel, we discovered 5 locations where the remodeller have punched a hole in the wall for new first night and neglected to install headers. This resulted in a sagging upstairs that needed to be jacked up up to that time it could be remodeled.
4) Bearing walls removed. Our family room apparently once was two separate rooms. A nouns bearing wall was removed, also cause an upstairs wing to sag by several inches.
5) Incorrectly installed heat ducts. Whoever installed the roast ducts in our home did a retrofit by jamming the ductwork through the studs instead of removing the wall. We uncovered large areas where on earth the ducts had buckled and either be blocked or dumping hot air into the walls instead of the rooms.
6)No greenboard behind shower tiles. We have to replace the shower walls in all three of our bathrooms when the tiles begin to fail. To our disgust, we discovered that the tiles had be glued directly to the plaster wall behind them minus any sort of greenboard. This caused rot in the walls aft all three showers and we found ourselves having to gut the walls of the bathroom and rebuilding them until that time installing new showers.
These are just a few of things astern the walls we encountered in our home. There be many other things that we could see for ourselves that were done incorrectly such as the staircase, egress, clearance, glass size and so on.
I would never recommend that anyone buy a house that has been remodelled by the owner in need permits and without inspections. It's the structural cog of the remodel that scare me ~ improper electric wiring can result in a fire, bad plumbing can result in sewer backup, and substandard framing and foundations means that the house may come tumbling down when you most minuscule expect.
Everything you mentioned could cause you a problem. The REAL problem could be after you buy it. If there is a fire cause by uninspected/illegal electrical installation, your insurance may not cover the costs. Let this house go to repo. Depending on how nasty the town is they could force you to hold all the illegal parts ripped out. You could also potentially own a problem with homeowners insurance if you have a claim resulting from the non-permitted work that be done - it could be denied.
You might go into the inspector's office within the town and without revealing much explain your problem. Say that you are considering buying a house and were wondering what might surface because of . . You can gauge your chance of nouns based on whether you get a friendly or heartless reply. You will probably have to have some repairs made and inspected.
Answers: What problems could you face? Every one that you cited, from bringing the additions up to code to tearing them out and have them re-done. A staircase at 5'-11" is such a blatant violation, if you don't fix it at some point you'll have trouble selling the house. Some of these things aren't a big buy and sell, but there are so many of them that I'd carry a contractor to advise you on how much it would cost to bring the house up to code, and negotiate the price down severely on that basis. If they won't play, pace away. The worst mistake you can make when buying a house--or a car--is to fall so contained by love with it that you are willing to sweep the problems below the rug.