Discrepency between Tax Assessor's website and the property.

[Chinmay J.]

Went to this house yesterday, and noticed that the house had 3 rooms.  The owner (seller) was yappin' about how he tore down this wall and that wall and made an extra room for himself. I stood there nodded and appeared impressed.

I come home and look at the County's Tax assessor website and the house is recorded with 2 Bed and 2 FB. So my thinking is that either the guy built one (he is in construction) by not pulling the right permits with the authorities or the county website is wrong.

I am planning to use HML with this transaction, so I am not sure this will be problem for me while buying, but is my thinking that this discrepancy can definitely cause issues when I am trying to flip the property, correct, especially when getting it appraised for loan.

How would you experienced flippers move forward in this situation? I am thinking of going back to the realtor and have her go back to the seller and get it corrected on the county website, provided it can be corrected, if not then my offer price should reflect tearing down the wall. 

Please correct me if I am wrong.. Thoughts?

[Russell Brazil]

The county permitting office and the assessors office have zero overlay. He could very well have pulled permits.  The other thing is he probably didn't need to pull permits for this so it doesn't really matter. The nuances of what you need to.pull permits for and don't varies by jurisdiction, but a homeowner in most of the counties in the area can do quite a bit of work to their own house without pulling permits.