Finished room with no permit (Cary: hotel, buying a home, buying)

[rmshill]

Anyone had any experience with buying a home where the owner finished a room without a permit and now apparently can't sell the house with the extended square feet? How do you retroactively get this addition permited so when we went to sell we could include in the square foot of the home? It's only a bonus room.

thanks.

[coltank]

You need to contact the city/county and get a permit, and have them do inspections. You may have to open up some walls so they can check electrical, etc., and you may have to pay some fines.

[dannyypk]

In this situation, the permit department might required a structural engineer to verify all the structural elements( floor joists span, size) and make sure they met the code requirements.

[goat1of2]

Why would you want to do this? It will only increase your taxes.

[CAKD]

If you are considering buying a home make sure you have the current owners do all this, not you. We looked at a home in Windermere when we were looking that we loved. The owners had finished the attic themselves without permits. When our realtor looked into it for us it was going to tack on an additional8 weeks or more to our escrow because the inspectors for the city of Cary are that backed up. Saldy we could not wait that long as we were staying in a hotel until we closed on a home. In any event if you are the buyer of a home in this situation you should not incur any costs except the additional taxes on the square footage in the years to come. Owner should pay any back taxes and inspection and permit fees.