Help with the finished basement with NO permit

[Ping Chen]

Hello BPers,

I have a SFH under contract. Everything looks fine (no structure, foundation, mold issues, just need cosmetic rehab). However, I found out that the basement is only 50% permitted per county record but the owner has it completely finished. Since I plan to do some renovations in basement, I have to pull permit. I worried the city inspector will ask me to open walls and inspect everything behind. Does anyone have experience on this or any suggestions?I had tried to ask city building department a courtesy inspection before we pull the permit, but they refused.

The other issue is that my HVAC guy said the AC unit (in basement) is too small (3 ton) for the 3000 sqft house per code and need to be replaced but my house inspector said the size of the A/C has more to do with design and planning. The city inspector most likely will not make it an issue if it works fine.

So will you back out if you have an unpermitted finished basement and you need to get it permitted during rehab? The price of house is about 70% of market value. Any thoughts?

[Robert Valenti]

I wouldn't worry about it too much. The permit was issued to the person who pulled it, not you. They are the ones who agreed to the terms of the permit, and to have inspections, etc.

You never entered in to any agreement with the building department, nor did you remodel anything in violation of any codes. As soon as the property changes hands the permit is void.

As far as the HVAC guy, well, I wouldn't worry about him either.

I would venture to guess that the amount of permits pulled and never closed out is huge. This is based on working as an inspector for a mid-sized city. There were thousands of them.

See here for info about permits:

http://publicecodes.cyberregs.com/icod/irc/2012/icod_irc_2012_1_sec007.htm