Right way to look at buying home with unpermitted additions ?

[Parabolica]

My wife and I are interested in a home that has 1500 original square feet with another 500 in rooms that likely were not permitted. The price of the house is comparable to other houses with 1500 sq. ft. and less than those with 2000 sq. ft. Our plan is to buy a place and reside there many years.

If we go for this one, I see three downsides: 1) when we sell it, it will have to go at a discount due to the unpermitted additions; 2) if we wanted to build on to the house with permits, the city would make us remove the additions or bring them up to code; 3)without permits, the quality of the additions is unknown (although they seem to have been done more than 20 years ago). We would still like the house even without the additions, so in the worst case we would have to remove them.

Am I missing anything? We like the house, the price and the neighborhood, but I’m wary about having a cloud over our heads due to the unpermitted additions. Also, does the city ever conduct audits of this kind of thing, or can an unfriendly neighbor sic the city on you? The latter seems unlikely, since all of the nearby houses seem to have questionable additions.

Thanks.

[CA renter]

Just my opinion, but if the original house had 1,500 sf, and they are pricing it basically as a 1,500 sf house, it shouldn’t be much of a problem for you. Since you’re buying it at a “discount” from 2,000 sf houses, you’ll simply sell it with the same type of “discount” when you sell it. Nothing lost, nothing gained.

In the meantime, if the addition looks like it’s in pretty good shape and a qualified general contractor can take a look at it and tell you that it would be easy to get it permitted, you might be buying it at an actual discount because you could get it properly permitted and sell it as a ~2,000 sf house if the addition is done well.

Yes, neighbors can complain, and there’s a chance you would have to take it down, but if it hasn’t happened yet, there’s a good chance it won’t happen while you’re living there.

Best of luck!

[patb]

when I bought my house, turned out there was some unpermitted work,
so we just filed a bunch of permits and when we were residing the house, we got the permits fixed.

[urbanrealtor]

Due to poor record-keeping by the city, it is pretty common to sell property with unpermitted additions or “permits unknown” or whatever.

If there is a real concern about the city filing an abatement, then the next step is to contact a permitting specialist.
(eg: precise permits).

Unless this were something that already had the attention of the City, I would pocket the discount and not think twice about buying it.

[Mayze]

Slightly off topic – what are the legal/permitting issues with closing off a corner of a garage with two additional walls and a ceiling? This room would enclose the side doorway exiting the garage, but could also have a door in one of the two new walls, back into the garage. Within SD city limits.

[Mayze]

Slightly off topic – what are the legal/permitting issues with closing off a corner of a garage with two additional walls and a ceiling? This room would enclose the side doorway exiting the garage, but could also have a door in one of the two new walls, back into the garage.

[Author]

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