Special Inspection for Visual Certification of Structure

[Nick Leopold]

Hello!

I purchased an old property “as is” that has a lot of unpermitted work from many many years ago. I am in the process of updating the records with the county to ensure a smooth appraisal / refinance. The county dug around for weeks and couldn’t find anything on the property. The area is notorious for not having kept great records on all the old properties. They finally came back with the following:

“At this point we would just need you to apply for a “Special Inspection” at our office for visual “certification” of the existing structures.”

I am curious what this sort of “visual certification” entails. Is it a walk around to measure current square footage, bed and bath count? Will I be opening up walls? Are they looking to see if things are up-to-code? With the house being so old it absolutely would not pass modern inspections. Will they be viewing this through the lens of when it was originally built? I feel that the key word is “visual certification” and hope that it’s very simple and straightforward.

Trying to stay in front of this. Any insight would be greatly appreciated!