Previous Owners Did Not Get Permits
REM #A648
By Ilyce R. Glink
Summary: A reader has recently bought a 50 year old home from an owner who did improvements to the home without pulling permits for the work. Ilyce discusses how to work with your local building department in getting permits for the work done previously.
Q: I recently bought a home. The previous owners did improvements to the home,
but they did it without pulling a permit for the work.
The main problem is the town has no record of the home as the building department
doesn’t keep records or blueprints past 15 years. The house is 50 years
old.
A: I guess I'm really not sure what problem you're facing. Are you concerned
about the quality of the improvements the previous owners made? Or, is the village
now causing trouble for things that were done without permits and might, in
fact, be against current code?
In situations where buyers purchase homes that had work done without pulling
a permit, the local building department typically works with the new home owner
to issue a permit covering the work that was already done. Yes, the owners pay
the permit fee, but that's usually the extent of it, if the work was done properly.
Then, the building department considers the property to be in compliance.
If you hadn't already closed on the property, you could have asked the homeowners
to go to the village and work this out as a condition of closing. If they refused,
you could have approached to the building department to find out what it would
take to close the books on this issue.
Since you've closed, you can either sue the seller in small claims court for
not pulling the correct permits (and paying the permit fees) or, you can just
work out a deal with the local building officials.
Since the house is 50 years old and the improvements are at least 15 years
old, the town officials should be more than willing to help you out with your
situation. The real issue for you is to make sure that the work was done properly.
NOTE: This column is distributed by Real Estate Matters Syndicate, PO Box 366, Glencoe, Illinois, 60022. This column may not be resold, reprinted, resyndicated or redistributed without written permission from the publisher.
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