Land Development Why get a building/remodeling permit
Most cities, counties and municipalities require that builders and homeowners obtain a building permit before beginning any modification to their structure. Let Local Real Estate Agent walk you through the web of permits, requirements and local authority documentation required by your county or community agency. Our expertise will be a valuable resource saving time and money on your project.
In order for the commercial contractor, residential builder, or even a homeowner to receive a permit, the owner or his/her representative/designee are required to file a plan that provides an estimate the total cost of the project and at that time there’s a fee based upon the value of the improvements. The estimated value may also effect the overall taxable value of the property being improved. Once a permit is issued, there may be required inspections to ensure that the modification is constructed in a safe and legal manner. This typically means that there will be some additional time involved with having to schedule an inspection and possibly some waiting for inspectors to come out, inspect and approve the work to be done or in the case of a progress inspection that it is being completed in a correct manner.
This process can be time consuming and can be somewhat inconvenient however this is necessary so that your improvement can pass final inspection. If a permit is needed and you fail to get one, someone may discover this at some time in the future (for instance when you try to sell the property in the future and getting a permit retroactively filed can overtimes be significantly more expensive and provide many more headaches than if you had obtained the permit before work commenced. If work is not done in accordance with your community’s guidelines or if the inspector is unable to determine if the work has been done properly, the homeowner could be required to tear down what was just completed, open walls or even pull up floors, so that the proper inspections can take place. We should not overlook the fact that work not permitted where a permit would be initially required must be disclosed to any prospective purchaser and failure to do so may cause the owner to discount their sale price or perform costly or potentially break apart a good deal for the seller or buyer, if nothing else, it may be required before clean title can be transferred.
For prospective buyers of a property, save yourself the future hassle and potential loss of capital by researching whether all work on the premises that you and your agent have selected has been done according to code and with the proper permits. Generally speaking you may obtain permit information online by going directly to Counties website where the property is located and looking under Building Safety or if you aren’t comfortable doing this, you can hire a local contractor to investigate it for you, that same person would be able to tell you whether or not the modification was built properly as well.
