Added second bathroom without a permit, am I screwed?

[Dale K Poyser]

Hey BP community,

My gf bought a condo 3 years ago. The condo is 900 sqft 1bd 1 bath with a loft. We added a full bathroom to the loft area so now the condo is 1bd 2bath with a loft. The next step is to enclose the loft area so that we have a full 2 bed 2bath which will be worth as much as the other 2bd 2bath in the area.

On the new bath we did not get it permitted, will that hurt us when we go to the bank to have it appraised? will we have to gut the place to have it permitted? Some of my friends have said the appraiser wont need to get into the walls or anything and we should be fine. And some have said we may have to rip everything up.

On the loft conversion, my GF was to enclose the area in glass as opposed to using drywall. I have seen the room w/glass enclosure done in a lot of pictures and it does look a lot nicer than just the drywall. But this does not seem to code as there is no window Egress. There also might not be enough space for a closet but I think we can find space somewhere. What are your thoughts on using the glass and still getting it classified as a second bedroom. Do people just do the glass enclosure and not worry about it being considered a bedroom? 

Code says fully enclosed with a closet, door, and window.

[Joe Splitrock]

Crazy idea, why don't you call your local building / permit office and ask them these questions? You should not be doing work on your property without permits and proper inspection. Show your plans to the office before you do the work and they will tell you if it meets code. As far as the work that is done, see what they need to do to properly inspect it. It may require opening walls, but who cares. Repairing a wall or two isn't very difficult.