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I bought a house with no permit for a two decks, an enclosed porch, a third bathroom and a dormer.
But my realtor and home seller were honest and I had a good lawyer.
We had money in escrow to get the permits and I had a a set penalty if taxes rose above set amount do to getting permits.
Only pain was I could not get paid for my own personal time spent. Which involved around 40 hours of paperwork and opening doors for an inspector and getting an electrical sign off.
Around one year later got final sign-offs on everything and I released the remainder of the escrow funds to seller. I actually paid him back 90% of it. I felt bad for him as he had a divorce and business was going under. I could have run up the escrow but really fought with town to get permits as cheaply as possible. I could not get the money, I rather see broke guy who sold me house at a good price get as much as possible back.
However, 99.999999999 of sellers would not do what this seller did.
My 400 sq ft deck w/ 2 sets of stairs was quoted at 6k to rebuild just the surface wood using cedar. With the foundation joists etc it would be about 10k. I am doing it myself for $1500. Don't be scared of the permit, unless you do major work and the town come and inspects no one will ever know. My deck has no permit in a neighboring town and I am rebuilding it w/o a permit. As far as taxes go if you build a deck over existing patio there is no tax increase as you are already being taxed for the patio!
Best thing you can do in LI is surround you entire property w/ Giant Green Arborvitae or Leyland Cypress start them at 6ft in 3-4 years they will be 15-20ft tall. These trees grow fast and furious and block out nosy neighbors.
My 400 sq ft deck w/ 2 sets of stairs was quoted at 6k to rebuild just the surface wood using cedar. With the foundation joists etc it would be about 10k. I am doing it myself for $1500. Don't be scared of the permit, unless you do major work and the town come and inspects no one will ever know. My deck has no permit in a neighboring town and I am rebuilding it w/o a permit. As far as taxes go if you build a deck over existing patio there is no tax increase as you are already being taxed for the patio!
Best thing you can do in LI is surround you entire property w/ Giant Green Arborvitae or Leyland Cypress start them at 6ft in 3-4 years they will be 15-20ft tall. These trees grow fast and furious and block out nosy neighbors.
Living fences are against the rules. They need to be at same max height as the max height of a fence.
Nobody reports it but ironically your living fence to block the view of your stuff needing a permit could get you in trouble.
Guy up block from me on a busy corner with a side yard got in trouble and got fines and was giving choice to cut living fence down to four feet or remove every other bush.
But he could have caused major accidents and he pissed off folks as cops would hide behind bush on one side to catch folks running stop sign.
WE have just moved into Syosset,NEW YORK, now we are looking for our own house,we saw one and made offer, the agent said the owner wanted 10,000 more but since the house dont have permit for its big deck atteched to the house, so if we willing to take as is, the owner would willing to sell to us. we are first time buyers and are not familiar with house purcharsing or the building code, please some one help us,should we take this house, how much we has to pay for getting CO for that deck now?we do think the deck is to big, so we may have the deck downsizing, so if we hire a constractor to downsize this deck could we just apply for a permit for the new deck without mention the old deck,in another word, could we just pretend there was no deck before and apply for a permit for a smaller size deck and hire a constractor to downsize the original deck?
thank you all for your helps
I bought my house in Syosset and the Central Air didnt have a permit on file. I had them put a clause in the contract that the seller is responsible for getting the permit.
he paid the expediator and they got the CO for the AC.
Town of Oysterbay inspects everything when they walk into your house. So if you do this yourself - make sure all the other ducks are in row....
Better to have them get the permit for the deck - say we will close and you can put 5K in escrow to get the permit for the Deck - the day we get the CO - you take your 5K.
^ agree a deck isn't a big deal unless you can't close specifically because of that missing CO. Can you get it through "as-is" or "gifted"?
A lot of people recommend to skip a house entirely because of supposed missing COs but there are a lot who also manage to squeak through without it being an issue.
I would not buy nor recommend buying a home that did not have the CO's or CoC's in order. That said, it can depend upon who the lending institution is, who the appraiser is and what town is involved. I can tell you that in TNH, I would RUN away. My story has been posted many times, and it was an ordeal for an a/c that was not done via permit by the former owners and I had no problem closing on it. We were one of the "lucky" ones who planned to add a fence about 2 years before we moved, and our fence permit was turned down for lack of permitted a/c. I say lucky because it took me months and months to get it legalized and a variance after that. If I had not done all of that in advance of the sale of my home I may have lost the sale.
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