Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Hi
we had a garage converted to a room in our house in north hempstead.
We did this 3 years ago and still have not had final sign off. For the first 18 months the town just kept sayinh that they are behind , then eventualy requests starting coming in dribs and drabs.
All documentation etc is now correct and the town have told us that they are happy and have everything they need to signoff except....they would first like to send an inspector to see our basement to check it is not finished.
Without getting into an endless discussion about a finished / non finished basement etc, can final sign off of a permit be held up by an unrelated item that the inspector wishes to see? My architect said that the town
cant do that , but nobody has been able to point me to town code that says that can or cant.
I dont mind letting them inspect my basement to get this whole thing ended, but i dont think it will - i know they are just after more revenue and i am concerned that they will tell me my boiler is not up to code or that i have an odd number of steps on my basement stairs or something and that this will never end. So far in order to get the new room approved we have had to file for a sewer certificate which they said they had on file (from 1962) but couldnt find (a "payment" of $35).
I remember your other thread. I would say yes because that's exactly what happened in my situation. I was in the Town of North Hempstead. Maybe it's different in other towns but they were relentless in their quest for money in mine.
Yes. I suppose you could get an attorney to draft a letter to say they've signed off on the job and you want your CO, it's worth a shot. Having had a similar situation as GPC, I would go that route if I had it to do over again.
THere isn't anything in the code that says they can do it. But there isn't anything that says they can't. Want your CO? You play by their rules.
Yes, it's all about revenue. Oh, well.
I don't think you need to worry about them telling you your boiler isn't up to code or the stairs aren't safe...in the absence of other work having been done. Houses have COs that means they are up to code at the time the work was done. THey can't force you to change stuff that was done when the house was built. But if you put in a bathroom, wood panelling, electrical outlets, etc - then that's a substantial change to the original house and they WILL get you on it.
Houses have COs that means they are up to code at the time the work was done. THey can't force you to change stuff that was done when the house was built.
In a way, this wasn't even true in my case. We got all the way to the end of the process, we were having what we thought/hoped was the final inspection. Everything was looking good but the inspector noted one thing that was done when the house was built that we did have to 'fix' - sorry for the bad word usage but I'm tired so I'm not going to edit it. Anyway, we had to put a railing down the basement stairs. There already was one railing of course but then at the bottom of the stairs on the other side it was open. It amount to half of the staircase. My house was a typical cape when it was first built so maybe you can visualize what I'm talking about. We wound up getting a quote for a plain but functional railing and gave the new owners a credit from the money held in escrow. They wanted to put in a snazzy oak railing so they put one in and paid the difference. Then we had yet another inspection and it finally passed. I thought it was crazy that we had to do this since the stairwell was the same as when the house was built in 1949 but to be fair I suppose it only had to be 'corrected' since the basement had been finished off years later. I guess it's okay to have a stairwell that's partially open if the basement isn't finished. Whatever!
I'll tell you what, I used to have a deck attached to the back of my house and a basement entrance too. I have a corner lot so it became a variance issue. After seeing what the town put my neighbor through before he was able to sell his house I took the deck down and had the basement entrance filled in. My solution was to remove the offending additions and return the house to what it was on the original survey, thereby eliminating the town from the equation entirely. Many have chosen this route unfortunately...
I'll tell you what, I used to have a deck attached to the back of my house and a basement entrance too. I have a corner lot so it became a variance issue. After seeing what the town put my neighbor through before he was able to sell his house I took the deck down and had the basement entrance filled in. My solution was to remove the offending additions and return the house to what it was on the original survey, thereby eliminating the town from the equation entirely. Many have chosen this route unfortunately...
I can't say I blame you one bit! I've said it before and I'll say it again; there are two 'homeowners' on Long Island - the person(s) listed on the deed to the house and the 'town'.
My neighbor had the same problem as you, he converted his garage to living space. He did everything by the book... hired a licensed contractor, filed the appropriate plans and forms, paid the fees, and thought everything was okay. This was like 15 years ago. Well as it turns out the Town of Oyster Bay never signed off on certain things, and they did the same thing to him as they're doing to you, they started nickle and diming him to death... They made him widen his driveway, because they said he no longer had a garage and needed to have space for two cars on the property. They scanned his entire property inside and out for permit issues, and found them... Made him submit plans and permit for a bay window he had installed 20 years ago, made him close off his side fence going into this yard, forced him to get a variance for his basement entrance, forced him to cut his deck back by 4 feet, broke his shoelaces over a skylight he had in the kitchen, and on and on and on...
Now this man and his wife were retired and actually had a buyer lined up for the house. Miraculously the buyer hung around for A SOLID YEAR while all these issues were handled! It cost my neighbor like $15 grand to get everything code compliant and approved, something he thought was okay when he filed the original plans with the town.
I guess the moral of the story is, DON'T CHANGE YOUR HOUSE UNLESS YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO! Don't do any structural change to it, because you never know if the building department is going to do what it's supposed to do before you sell, and once they know you're tying to sell your house THEY HAVE YOU!
Question is, how does the town get involved when you go to sell?
When I bought my house, the town had no part in it.
The town gets involved when the inspector for the buyer/bank finds certain issues that might impact the sale of the home. The home inspector will deliver a list to the buyer and the bank of all issues found during inspection, the bank can then ask the seller to rectify these issues before financing is okayed. In my neighbors situation the bank found that the garage conversion was never signed off on by the Town of Oyster Bay, this brought the Town in to the picture, at which point they knew he was trying to sell and did everything they could to pull the maximum amount of money out of his pocket prior to the sale because they knew he couldn't sell without their approval.
If it had been my house, and the bank wanted to bring the Town into the picture, there would be a roll-off dumpster in front of my house and that garage conversion would be a garage again in about 2 weeks...
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
