I recently purchased a home just outside of the Asheville, NC city limits. There is as beautiful old barn on the back corner of the 1 acre yard. When purchasing the home, I did think that I could set up a large canvas tent on the inside of the barn and rent it out as a "glamping" vacation rental (I've been itching to dip my toe into a vacation rental for a couple of years now. LOVE my long term rentals, but I'm young and looking for some excitement lol). However, the more I have discussed this over the past couple of months since buying the place, the more I am leaning towards totally finishing out the inside of the barn and having a more traditional vacation rental. I would love any and all suggestions, warnings and opinions on any aspect of this project, but my main concern is knowing what to look into when it comes to the legal side of turning a non-inhabited building into a fully livable guest suite.

Installing electrical, plumbing, septic, insulating, finishes, etc are all things I have enough experience with to move forward without blinking (but also very open to all ideas!), but the legal/permitting/insurance/etc part of this project is what is currently terrifying me. I think that in the long term, seeing this through will be a great investment, but I am having a hard time committing to the idea thinking that there is going to be some big legal issue that I do not find out about until after dropping in all my rehab cash.

A little about the Barn:

Electricity and Water are currently run underground to the barn from the house.
I can put a small septic tank in, but not yet sure about the permitting for that.
The exterior walls are not closed in and I'm still sifting through ideas for the most economical way to close it in while keeping the look of the barn on the outside.
I plan on putting in a bathroom and a kitchenette
The property line runs only about 2' off the back of the barn and about 6' off the right side of the barn.
The previous owners put in a new CMU foundation (within the last 10 years)