Buying a house with expired permits from 2004

[Rick Myers]

Question to those who may have dealt with this before.  Seeking advice.  I have found a house that has undergone demo and I wanted to finish the work myself.  Researching the city records I see the property owner in 2004 had some open permits to add AC to the house but the work was not to code so the permit inspection failed on parts of the uograde and never resolved.  Now the permits show as expired.  If I buy the house, do you think I would be held accountable for these permits.  I know I need to open new ones since the previous owner stole the AC before being foreclosed on.  

Should this be a warning to shy away from this deal or something we can work through with the city?

Thanks for any advice!

[Charlie DiLisio]

I went thru a similar situation in Lake Worth and had to pull a permit thru my GC and the problem was getting the drawings and approvals took about 2 months before they issued the new permit before I could even start the re-hab.  Due to the expired permit the city also imposed a 100 a day fine and they had a 24,000. lien on the property which kept on accumulating until the work was completed and in compliance.  I would definitely check for city liens and how they handle the abatement process.  I was in luck with Lake Worth in that they counted all of the re-hab costs to correct the violations and accepted them and ended up with 0 owed to the city in my case.  Interesting scenario but luckily city was pleased with the re-hab and was glad to close out the case.  I did more than they asked and was very attentive to their directives.  Good luck in Plant City, I hope they will work with you as they did for me.  It got settled before a magistrate hearing and many people didn't get anything taken off but I don't know what their situation was.