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It seems a lot has been said and discussed on this forum on this topic. We recently purchased a property in great neck and are debating about whether or not to get a permit for renovation. Any advice is welcomed.
Situations are:
- We are looking to update the house. No structural change or adding any rooms. The main project is update 2.5 bathrooms and kitchen. For bathroom, just new tiles, shower, tub and etc. For kitchen, we keep layout the same except we are thinking of opening a nonload bearing wall between kitchen and dining room to put a countertop island there.
- Our contractor is trustworthy from NYC. I don't expect any quality/safety issue as they've done our property in NYC with permits and inspection.
- We do plan to live there for 10-20 years so resale is not a concern.
We normally would prefer to get permits, but our biggest concern is property tax. As you all might know, the property tax is already very high. We don't want to add insult to the injury.
Question:
- Does the town even know the inside layout of the house (kitchen)? I looked up our property card, it doesn't show any wall between our kitchen and dining room. So how would they know if we did the work, assuming they don't catch us in the act?
- How is property tax assessed? Would permit for sure increase our property tax? I am getting conflicting opinions from different people. Some say if we don't add a room or bathroom, property tax will not be affected. I read some threads on the forum and it seems just getting permit will increase property tax.
Thanks for your time reading this. Any thoughts will be appreciated.
Lived in TNH for 59 years. So long as the foot print of the house doesn't change there is no increase to property taxes, and by footprint I am including air rights, too. NOW, that said, if say you and a neighbor both get permits for the exact same kitchen job and your neighbor puts sheet vinyl on the floor and you put hard wood, that will up your taxes.
Generally speaking you do not need a permit for a home improvement like a kitchen or bath. Now, the key for you will be the removal of the wall. Once you put dumpster in the driveway - you can be subject to a lot of questions - namely what are you doing and do you have a permit. Could be nosy neighbors, could be a town employee who just happens to be driving by. Why is the wall such a big deal? The TNH will want to be sure it isn't load bearing (not that you contractor isn't competent to determine that) and if there is any electric in that wall that is surrendered they would want it to be inspected by an electrical inspector authorized of course by, you guessed it the TNH.
If you can get the debris removed without the dumpster you should be golden.
If you can get the debris removed without the dumpster you should be golden.
This 100%.
Plus having a ton of tradespeople’s vans in your driveway/on street with signage on their vehicles is also a giveaway.
Unless you are in a rush I suggest doing it a bit at a time with spacing in between. If anyone asks just say you are doing some repairs, not renovations.
I’ll simply this! Nassau County says renovating your home will not cause your taxes to go up. This is true. If you pull permit it will trigger a reassement of the property. The reassement of the home will then go up this causing a tax increase based On the now higher assessment value.
No reason to pull permits for what you aren doing. Especially with plans to stay long term.
Thank you very much for the replies. They are very helpful. We are just concerned about property tax as it is a one-way street.
We can just leave debris in the garage and then get a private junk car to dispose once all is done. I was thinking if we open and close that wall within a day or two, even if the inspector shows up, how can they prove that we had a wall there? I could just say i am just repainting all the walls.
We just renovated our bathrooms and plan to renovate our kitchen soon. Our contractor removed the debris and no one said anything. Others on our block also did similar renovations over the past 5 years. No permits were needed and the taxes did not increase. We called our building department and they said permits for kitchen/bathroom renovations (without changing much). We just updated the plumbing during the renovation.
Thank you very much for the replies. They are very helpful. We are just concerned about property tax as it is a one-way street.
We can just leave debris in the garage and then get a private junk car to dispose once all is done. I was thinking if we open and close that wall within a day or two, even if the inspector shows up, how can they prove that we had a wall there? I could just say i am just repainting all the walls.
If an inspector shows up you say “just doing some repairs, and no you cannot come in and see”.
We just renovated our bathrooms and plan to renovate our kitchen soon. Our contractor removed the debris and no one said anything. Others on our block also did similar renovations over the past 5 years. No permits were needed and the taxes did not increase. We called our building department and they said permits for kitchen/bathroom renovations (without changing much). We just updated the plumbing during the renovation.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Good neighbors are important!
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