Does a building inspector nail you for unpermitted work?

[Wrench97]

Back in the early 80's I was putting aluminum siding on the house and several windows, the building inspector stopped by to ask how many windows I was changing told him I wasn't sure yet when I get to one that's rotten I run over the local building supply and grab one....................he told that if I do any more then 3 at a time I need a permit.
Told him I'm only one guy can't possibly due more then one at a time....................to my surprise he said ok and left.
To this day I still don't understand how it was ok to install siding and up to 3 windows and not need a permit I mean what the heck is the difference if you install 3 of them wrong or all of them........................................
But if I change a faucet or a P trap I need a licensed plumber and a permit...................

 

[jhelrey]

Kind of busted by a home inspector... Ours do not work for the City but are subbed out retired contractors. I was installing a gas fireplace on our main level and since the basement had one. I didn't want someone to ask questions if we sell...

Inspector comes out to look at the gas line and that it's indeed holding pressure. He also checked the clearance around the fireplace. He notices the electrical box was brand new and moved to power the fireplace. He said technically speaking, I needed three permits. Gas, electrical, and the fireplace itself. I looked at him and said, well... one would assume there is gas and electrical involved if I am installing a gas fireplace which is the reason for the permit. He looks at me, snickers, and signs off on the permit. He also noted the gas and electrical also passed.

 

[Hobby_Man22]

yup - and they might gig you for 2x the original permit fee

can you hide it?

or say "that's been there forever, it was there when I bought the place"

Trying to blame it on the previous owner when they didn't have anything to do with it may not be a good idea. Will they get ahold of the previous owner about it? I doubt they can or have a right to.

 

[Hobby_Man22]

Back in the early 80's I was putting aluminum siding on the house and several windows, the building inspector stopped by to ask how many windows I was changing told him I wasn't sure yet when I get to one that's rotten I run over the local building supply and grab one....................he told that if I do any more then 3 at a time I need a permit.
Told him I'm only one guy can't possibly due more then one at a time....................to my surprise he said ok and left.
To this day I still don't understand how it was ok to install siding and up to 3 windows and not need a permit I mean what the heck is the difference if you install 3 of them wrong or all of them........................................
But if I change a faucet or a P trap I need a licensed plumber and a permit...................

Nice. Sir there's no way I can do 3 at a time.

 

[mike93lx]

Trying to blame it on the previous owner when they didn't have anything to do with it may not be a good idea. Will they get ahold of the previous owner about it? I doubt they can or have a right to.

Absolutely no chance they are chasing down a previous owner.

 

[Hobby_Man22]

Absolutely no chance they are chasing down a previous owner.

True but when we live in a sue happy world of Karens you have to be careful about that kind of thing.

 

[mike93lx]

True but when we live in a sue happy world of Karens you have to be careful about that kind of thing.

There is a line at which you don't need to worry about

 

[mcbane]

I got a sales pitch several years back from a Google maps “partner” trying to market a ratting out service to cities and counties. His firm analyzed the satellite photo layer of the maps and recognized roof lines. By comparing data from one year to the next they could identify new construction. That construction would be compared to permit records. Their business model was to collect a bounty on every unpermitted project they found.

Fortunately not too many cities and countries pay bounties.

 

[jkeyser14]

Weird timing. I had a county tax assessor come by my house today for a physical check to make sure there was no unpermitted work for tax purposes. He measured our deck to compare it to our permit which he had with him, and he also looked at our unfinished basement (from outside the house) to make sure we hadn't finished it without permit.

 

[Tman]

Trying to blame it on the previous owner when they didn't have anything to do with it may not be a good idea. Will they get ahold of the previous owner about it? I doubt they can or have a right to.

You think too much.....

 

[andyvh1959]

Just had the AC unit replaced at my house. A new 3-ton Lennox system, new a-coil and plenum on the furnace, all installed by a long term well known local supplier. Now I got an inspection request from the city of Green Bay for the AC installation permit submitted to the HVAC contractor for my address. Just kind of surprised me. I assumed a qualified, licensed contractor would just be able to perform the work without a permit/inspection.
Gotta call the city inspector tomorrow and get that done.

 

[DPDISXR4Ti]

The thing to think about is whether it's important, when it comes time to sell the property, that the work was documented. So yes, you better believe when I had my oil tank removed, I got a permit and made sure the bldg inspector inspected it and filed the docs. I also made sure I took pics.

 

[mike93lx]

The thing to think about is whether it's important, when it comes time to sell the property, that the work was documented. So yes, you better believe when I had my oil tank removed, I got a permit and made sure the bldg inspector inspected it and filed the docs. I also made sure I took pics.

Oil tanks and visible construction are dramatically different

 

[DGersic]

Just had the AC unit replaced at my house. A new 3-ton Lennox system, new a-coil and plenum on the furnace, all installed by a long term well known local supplier. Now I got an inspection request from the city of Green Bay for the AC installation permit submitted to the HVAC contractor for my address. Just kind of surprised me. I assumed a qualified, licensed contractor would just be able to perform the work without a permit/inspection.
Gotta call the city inspector tomorrow and get that done.

Here, the contractors (and subs) I’ve hired pull permits. They also handle the inspection. It’s a small town, they all know each other, and everyone knows who does good work.

The electrical inspection on our remodel consisted of “Oh, you had X do the electric? Ok, thats good.” And done.

On my own projects, I pull permits when required. A lot of people don’t. They know it. They also have a reputation for making it a pain for people who don’t when they should. Decks are a common target. Anyone can go to the store, buy some wood and build a deck. That requires a permit. Skip the permit, they wait for you to be done, then show up to inspect the footings.

 

[bigdav160]

True but when we live in a sue happy world of Karens you have to be careful about that kind of thing.

Your location says Texas. Geographically, there is hardly any place that does "inspections", enforce permits or even have a building inspector in the County.

Even in one of the largest Counties in the country (Harris), they don't "nail you" for unpermitted work

edit: the exception is septic and flood control. Some counties are picky and do enforce those codes.

 

[tstaude]

The town where I first had a house you had to have a permit for everything, even a fricken water heater.

I heard of the inspector (who is known to be a ****) visiting a friends house who had a finished basement. This was unpermitted and he turned him in and fined him!

My current municipality has a guy who is private and very good to work with for permitted work.

I guess it really depends on municipality

 

[MushCreek]

I lived in CT and FL, and they were both very fussy. A neighbor in FL got dinged for putting a window shutter back up that had fallen off. When I put up a privacy fence (with a permit), the day I brought home the lumber an inspector cruised by an hour later. Now, I lived on a small cul-de-sac, and inspectors never just cruised by. Some busy-body neighbor ratted me out. As soon as he saw the permit, he sped up and left. Interestingly, at another house in FL, I installed a fireplace without a permit, and they never said anything, but on the tax rolls, the fireplace showed up after a while. Not sure how they determined that.

 

[andyvh1959]

Wait,......a permit is required to remount a window shutter!!?? Tax dollars certainly being wasted there.

 

[Wrench97]

Wait,......a permit is required to remount a window shutter!!?? Tax dollars certainly being wasted there.

Hurricane alley a shutter improperly attached becomes a projectile if it comes off.

 

[andyvh1959]

Aha,...we don't get many hurricane force winds up here in Wisconsin, other than the 100 year storm Derecho.

 

[Al G]

The setbacks in my area are 5 feet, which if you have a neighbor implies 10 feet between adjacent structures.

My brother-in-law is in a weird position where a neighbor put a shed in his backyard within his property boundary. Then he put up a fence and the company went 5 feet around their shed since there's supposed to be 5 feet. However due to the placement of the shed, that one fence line ended up encroaching between 1-2 ft over his property line. He wasn't paying that much attention at first, but noticed it after the fact. Whatever inspection process was or was not done didn't catch it.

He hasn't done anything about it, but just something to think about if your neighbors (or future neighbors) are not quite as nice about it.

You're brother-in-law needs to do something about this now. In many locations this is considered open and hostile occupation, or something like that. After a period of time the neighbor gains ownership of the property on his side of the fence because your brother-in-law essentially gave it away.

 

[firebirdparts]

Wait,......a permit is required to remount a window shutter!!?? Tax dollars certainly being wasted there.

Other way round. Tax dollars certainly being collected. The permitting office is self-supporting

 

[Jackfre]

When building my shop I had a regular inspector. He had followed the crew on the house build and then to the shop. He knew the crew and the work quality and was comfortable with the work being done. I called for an inspection so we could insulate. A new guy showed up and basically did a new top to bottom inspection. I took the permit over to him and. Showed that everything had all ready been signed off. The only thing he found was one foundation anchor location that was missing. We added it. As he was leaving I followed him out and asked if he was happy to be a part of the Dept and he said he really was. I couldn’t help but inquire of him how he felt undermining the long term guys in the dept was going to go for him. You could see him kinda shrink at the thought of it. He was quickly gone.

 

[Hobby_Man22]

Where was the deck located? Front of the house or back? Was it like a front porch type of thing?

So you had an uncompleted deck for a year waiting for permits?

 

[Marc Voorhees]

So you had an uncompleted deck for a year waiting for permits?

Yep. Took me about a year to have finished it all. I wasn't waiting for permits, I wasn't able to work on it as fast as I wanted. So the project lingered with open permits

 

[acer66]

In my limited experience they do not really look around too much and let things slide that can be grandfathered in but if they see something that was never up to code they call you out on it.

Results can vary of course and I would say another big factor is how the interaction s with the inspector go.
My main one was known to be kind of a stickler and a bit nitpicking in the beginning but once he realized that I was not looking for shortcuts it was smooth sailing.

 

[dcg9381]

Say he's there to inspect a driveway or give a permit for a driveway and sees you have an a.c. unit that wasn't permitted. Is he going to make you get a permit for it?

Here, the guy that's inspecting the driveway right-of-way has zero knowledge of electrical and plumbing.
Electrical inspector doesn't care about the driveway.
Septic inspector doesn't care about the HVAC or driveway, unless it interferes with septic.
Best to do "unpermitted" work AFTER the inspector of that trade has been by. I've certainly installed things (like HVAC disconnects) where it's obvious I'm going to do them eventually, but haven't done them on inspection day.

You *might* run into issues in smaller areas where the inspector is an inspector of many things.... We inspect one permit at a time and generally it's "not obvious" what has been permitted/hasn't.

Now if you're "not nice" to someone at the city or piss off an inspector, they can get motivated to dig a little. So don't do that. It's been a fairly regular thing where if you piss off someone at a local city, they'll send "code enforcement" out to have a look at what you're doing. Including hassling you about unimproved property for use that is entirely within zoning...

 

[65ranchero]

The town we live in required a permit to build my 2nd attached garage.
Just to build
There was no other inspection of slab, framing, plumbing, or electrical
I don't remember if they ever came back to see if it was completed.
All we had to do is fill out a small form hand draw estimated property and lines and indicate where the garage is going and paid the fee and left.
But the property appraisers showed up around a year later and added the garage to the rolls

A state permit was required to replace the septic, had to have a engineered drawing from a architect

In my other house in NJ a permit was needed for just about every thing.
For one:
We wanted to go on city water and being my BIL was a licensed plumber we were going to have him hook it up
The city said we don't know him and will need some one we know do the work ( can you say payoff?)

After we abandoned the well we were going to use the well on a separate circuit for washing cars and garden , Nope can't do that
must be rendered unusable . A well company had to open the well head and pour grout down the well and the pump pulled and the inlet line to the house had to be cut off at the wall and rendered impossible to rehook up.

 

[paredown]

What inspector is ever going to know what was and wasn't done over the years on a house? They're not going to go back and study the plans of the original building and compare to what is there now. Hell, half the stuff isn't even fully documented on plans that are submitted.

Permit the major stuff (decks, basements, etc.) and t'heck with anything else. At least if DIY and you're competent and don't cut corners because of lack of permit that is.

Around here there are so many illegal renovations (featuring a lot of substandard work)--and the time the piper is paid is when you go to sell your house--so that is in fact exactly what happens.

The building inspector shows up with the file for the house including the as-builts and then does a very thorough walk-through, and anything that is not listed as original or permitted in the interim is checked, and the owner is required to get permits, and bring anything and everything up to code, before they will allow the sale of the house to complete.

We were looking after a house for an owner who moved away--walk-through happened, and we were required to bring the basement wiring up to code (P/O had done it himself--I've seen worse, but also incurred permit fee) plus get all the wiring reinspected, add a hearth in front of the airtight stove (and pay permit fee), and get a chimney inspection. Also, there had been an addition added (that was permitted) with a hot tub and we were required to alarm the door. Plus there were a bunch of changes required to bring it up to fire code (alarms, closer on garage door) and some other miscellaneous stuff.
[/QUOTE]

 

[sparky 1971]

I wouldn't worry about the AC one bit. The inspector probably won't even notice it. Just don't say anything. People sometimes say way too much.

 

[marinusdees]

Say he's there to inspect a driveway or give a permit for a driveway and sees you have an a.c. unit that wasn't permitted. Is he going to make you get a permit for it?

They are supposed to have tunnel vision. If they want to be jerks, ??

 

[Hobby_Man22]

They are supposed to have tunnel vision. If they want to be jerks, ??

I've heard they arent allowed to go and nail you for other ****. Just look at what they're their to look at.

 

[Viper98912]

I lived in an area where rear decks and finished basements were "big" items that people did, either to enjoy for themselves and/or to increase their sale price. I made sure to get those permitted, as they are large, easy things to see and be able to look up online.

When the inspector came over, he pretty much came over to take a look at the specific line item he was coming to see. Was in and out, and even gave advice for what he wanted to see the next time he came over for the next bullet point. I was appreciative of that, since we homeowners don't always know what they want to see. He said normally they'll give homeowners a break, but they don't to contractors, because they should know better since they do the job for a living. On the inverse, he was also happy I did what he was looking for (from the last bullet check) as he has plenty of people who specifically ignore his requests/comments. (Why would someone ignore an inspector's requests, just to make it more difficult on yourself? Beats me. In my case it was simple, he just wanted additional fireblocking foam in additional cracks/crevices/openings. Took me a few minutes and all was done).

 

[Chuckster in NJ]

TIP! "IF" you have done work WITHOUT permits just go down to the local inspector and ask for forgiveness and take out the proper permits. This will make it easy and “pain free” (for you or others) when you go to sell your house. Don’t lie or scam about when the work was done by the "previous owner"…….. Just be honest because the inspectors aren’t stoopid! Just tell them you want to do the "right thing" for your family.

 

[Rustypigeon]

permits do not guarantee quality work.

They also don't guarantee the work was even done to code. I moved into a brand new house not long ago and found several electrical code issues...

-Several AFCI breakers had their pigtails going to an auxiliary ground bus kit.
-Dishwasher and garbage disposal on the same 15 amp circuit. They pull a combined 16 amps.
-NM cable used underground to the front yard post light.

All of this was approved by the inspector. The permit sticker on the panel was really just a tax stamp.

 

[mrbc]

.......

 

[denis4x4]

First off, when you go to sell your house, chances are the inspection process will trigger a records search to see if permits were pulled for any number of reasons. I bought a large prefab barn that was shipped from the factory along with a barn for a gentleman in AZ. Parts got mixed up and the building inspector noted that my barn lacked the proper pieces for a 90# snow load. Company quickly fixed the problem. If there ever is a major snow storm in Scottsdale, there's a barn there that will survive! In my estimation, permits are not a bad thing.

 

[Motown]

I got a sales pitch several years back from a Google maps “partner” trying to market a ratting out service to cities and counties. His firm analyzed the satellite photo layer of the maps and recognized roof lines. By comparing data from one year to the next they could identify new construction. That construction would be compared to permit records. Their business model was to collect a bounty on every unpermitted project they found.

Fortunately not too many cities and countries pay bounties.

Some cities around here use google maps to search for people that added decks without a permit. compare a old to a new satellite photo's

 

[Hobby_Man22]

So will they care about the ac when the electrical guy comes to inspect the power for the second steel building I want to build? Since it's like right there by the box. I really got the shaft by the contractors I used not pulling permits.

 

[Hobby_Man22]

So will they care about the ac when the electrical guy comes to inspect the power for the second steel building I want to build? Since it's like right there by the box. I really got the shaft by the contractors I used not pulling permits.

Guess I'll throw them under the bus if it's an issue.