Building things without a permit... (1 Viewer)

[MCguidance]

We redid the floors (pulled carpet and laid the wood), and demo'd the kitchen. Like an idiot, I left the garbage bags in the front of the house too long and we got the big sticker on the window to, "stop all work" yadda yadda yadda. The quartz countertops were going in the next day so I let them put them in...only to have the town inspector come and scream at us. No fine, but we had to pull permits for the remainder of the electrical and plumbing. Very annoying and cost us a few hundred.

My suggestion is that if you are on a main street, pull the permits. If you are on a back road, chance it and get your garbage out of sight.

See...I'm OK with this as a possible "punishment." Yell at me all you want. Fine me a reasonable amount. It's still going to save me a ton over having someone else do it.

Good call re. the garbage. I'm hoping to get one of those Bagster things for the old deck demo and just put it in the driveway out of sight.

In the end it was fine.

Put it out of sight, not in the garbage.

 

[NutterButter]

Seems like I'm getting pretty unanimous feedback here...Thanks guys. Feeling a bit better about just working through my project without permits. I guess if I ever got caught, I could argue that I was just repairing an existing deck or something. Any drawings would show a deck...just one smaller than the one I'm building.

are you sure you even need permits for this?

IMO&E, as long as you're within your side & backyard setbacks, you should be fine.

also- I highly doubt somebody comes in later with *AHA!* this deck is a few feet wider and longer than the last filed drawings show- arrest this man!

I would say he would need to pull if he is adding new footings

I think in NJ the only thing you don't need a permit for is painting a room <_<

This. By the book, I would've needed a permit to re-do my powder room, which took me 2 days because I moved the location of a light box and extended some copper pipe a foot higher. NJ code is rediculous.

I really wanted to consider using Diamond Piers (Pin Piers) for the footings because we have A TON of rock...I don't even think they're allowed in NJ, despite being approved in a lot of places, and ideal for our crappy clay/rock soil. I think helical piers are allowed, but they're $$$. I'm going to have to rent a skid steer to dig those footing holes. I'd die if I tried to dig them by hand.

Hah. I can vouch for this. In Morris county, the soil here is ridiculous. There's more damn rocks than there is dirt. I put in a fence for my mom down by the shore and digging holes is like a hot knife through butter. I was so jealous.

 

[cstu]

I think the problems won't show up until you try to sell the house.

I doubt anyone will ever check.

 

[comfortably numb]

Buddy of mine was buying a house and it turned out the deck was built without a permit, so the home inspector wouldn't sign off on it. Ended up being a big hassle for the seller. I'm not sure exactly what it entailed, but just something to think about. I'm sure this is heavily area-dependent...this was in NJ.

That's the home inspector of the seller or someone associated with the town? If the former, worst case, you need to find another buyer right?

I'm not a homeowner so don't know the mechanics...I know the inspector is engaged by the buyer but unsure if he's "associated with the town" or not. Either way, yeah you can get another buyer but the issue is that another buyer's inspector will likely turn up the same issue. I know my friend had the seller make some concessions on other issues his inspector found. The seller originally took a hard stance against it, but then realized (likely with the help of his realtor) that another buyer would have the same complaints so it's better not to throw away one potential sale over things like that.

In NJ the home inspector brought in by the buyer will note if something appears to be done without a permit, but that is it.

Where you run into a problem is a CO (Certificate of Occupancy) has to be applied for from each town.

The town sends their inspectors to make sure house is liveable, permits are in tact and smoke detectors are in.

Without the towns CO you can't move in.

Yeah, the CO was more of what I was thinking would be the problem. I know my home inspector didn't ask for any permits when we bought the house. I think I'll be in the same boat as Nick when I go to sell my house and the town inspector sees that a lot of the work I've done doesn't have permits. Oh well. I guess I'll just stay here until I die.

When that time comes I plan to just play stupid and say the wife handled all these things.

Funny story when I applied for my kitchen addition

When I had applied for my fence variance I had to give a drawing of where i intended to place the fence.

I had a hearing, pleaded my case, people on the board had actually drove by beforehand. They gave me permission and they kept that drawing on file.

Well when i actually put the fence in my wife and the fence guy basically said extend it further if you want, no one cares in the town, you will be fine etc...

We did, and he was right. we went about 10' further down to the front of the house instead of starting it at the back of the house. No one came out for post inspection.

FF a couple years and I am before the board again pleading my case for my extension. I was always concerned about having extended my fence line. Wife would always just blah it off and say I am paranoid etc..

New guy up on the hill seems confused by my new drawing calls me up to his big desk to better explain where I am doing my addition.

My drawing had the addition inside the fence line, his old drawing had my addition outside the fence line.

He basically called me out on not having put the fence where agreed upon.

I hung my head and said yea the fence guy just said lets put it here and I went with it.

He smiled and said Ok, just wanted to make sure I was seeing things correctly.

They allowed my addition and said they will be checking to make sure I do exactly what we have asked.

I played it off pretty well at the board meeting but wonder how I red my face got at that moment

 

[NutterButter]

Buddy of mine was buying a house and it turned out the deck was built without a permit, so the home inspector wouldn't sign off on it. Ended up being a big hassle for the seller. I'm not sure exactly what it entailed, but just something to think about. I'm sure this is heavily area-dependent...this was in NJ.

That's the home inspector of the seller or someone associated with the town? If the former, worst case, you need to find another buyer right?

I'm not a homeowner so don't know the mechanics...I know the inspector is engaged by the buyer but unsure if he's "associated with the town" or not. Either way, yeah you can get another buyer but the issue is that another buyer's inspector will likely turn up the same issue. I know my friend had the seller make some concessions on other issues his inspector found. The seller originally took a hard stance against it, but then realized (likely with the help of his realtor) that another buyer would have the same complaints so it's better not to throw away one potential sale over things like that.

In NJ the home inspector brought in by the buyer will note if something appears to be done without a permit, but that is it.

Where you run into a problem is a CO (Certificate of Occupancy) has to be applied for from each town.

The town sends their inspectors to make sure house is liveable, permits are in tact and smoke detectors are in.

Without the towns CO you can't move in.

Yeah, the CO was more of what I was thinking would be the problem. I know my home inspector didn't ask for any permits when we bought the house. I think I'll be in the same boat as Nick when I go to sell my house and the town inspector sees that a lot of the work I've done doesn't have permits. Oh well. I guess I'll just stay here until I die.

When that time comes I plan to just play stupid and say the wife handled all these things.

Funny story when I applied for my kitchen addition

When I had applied for my fence variance I had to give a drawing of where i intended to place the fence.

I had a hearing, pleaded my case, people on the board had actually drove by beforehand. They gave me permission and they kept that drawing on file.

Well when i actually put the fence in my wife and the fence guy basically said extend it further if you want, no one cares in the town, you will be fine etc...

We did, and he was right. we went about 10' further down to the front of the house instead of starting it at the back of the house. No one came out for post inspection.

FF a couple years and I am before the board again pleading my case for my extension. I was always concerned about having extended my fence line. Wife would always just blah it off and say I am paranoid etc..

New guy up on the hill seems confused by my new drawing calls me up to his big desk to better explain where I am doing my addition.

My drawing had the addition inside the fence line, his old drawing had my addition outside the fence line.

He basically called me out on not having put the fence where agreed upon.

I hung my head and said yea the fence guy just said lets put it here and I went with it.

He smiled and said Ok, just wanted to make sure I was seeing things correctly.

They allowed my addition and said they will be checking to make sure I do exactly what we have asked.

I played it off pretty well at the board meeting but wonder how I red my face got at that moment

The inspectors have a soft spot in their hearts for women, we got caught a few times when we first started doing work on the house. Each time was like a $500 fine and each time my wife goes in with some sob story and they dropped the fine. My biggest concern is that I built a bump out pantry over a side porch. I'm guessing there's no way I get out of having to tear that down if we try to sell.

 

[Fat Nick]

Seems like I'm getting pretty unanimous feedback here...Thanks guys. Feeling a bit better about just working through my project without permits. I guess if I ever got caught, I could argue that I was just repairing an existing deck or something. Any drawings would show a deck...just one smaller than the one I'm building.

are you sure you even need permits for this?

IMO&E, as long as you're within your side & backyard setbacks, you should be fine.

also- I highly doubt somebody comes in later with *AHA!* this deck is a few feet wider and longer than the last filed drawings show- arrest this man!

I would say he would need to pull if he is adding new footings

I think in NJ the only thing you don't need a permit for is painting a room <_<

This. By the book, I would've needed a permit to re-do my powder room, which took me 2 days because I moved the location of a light box and extended some copper pipe a foot higher. NJ code is rediculous.

I really wanted to consider using Diamond Piers (Pin Piers) for the footings because we have A TON of rock...I don't even think they're allowed in NJ, despite being approved in a lot of places, and ideal for our crappy clay/rock soil. I think helical piers are allowed, but they're $$$. I'm going to have to rent a skid steer to dig those footing holes. I'd die if I tried to dig them by hand.

Hah. I can vouch for this. In Morris county, the soil here is ridiculous. There's more damn rocks than there is dirt. I put in a fence for my mom down by the shore and digging holes is like a hot knife through butter. I was so jealous.

I swear, when we first moved in, I tried to just dig 6 posts for a little fence around our garden to keep the fearless NJ deer away from it...Took me basically a full day because I kept hitting huge rocks. It's oddly rarely bedrock, but rocks way bigger than you can just dig out easily. The neighbors who have been on the street since the houses were built said that they typically had to blast out our basements because of rock. You literally can't dig a 3' x 3' hole without hitting a ton of rock.

Any idea why it's so bad? In VA where I grew up, you either hit no rock or a huge limestone outcrop. Here, it's tons of big, annoying, but moveable (with effort) rock.

 

[Fat Nick]

When that time comes I plan to just play stupid and say the wife handled all these things.

Can you elaborate here? You said your wife handled all the permits? How exactly did you play that angle? My wife would totally be on-board with such schemeing, but I'm not sure how I could swing it so someone actually believed she played a role in this.

 

[jon_mx]

We redid the floors (pulled carpet and laid the wood), and demo'd the kitchen. Like an idiot, I left the garbage bags in the front of the house too long and we got the big sticker on the window to, "stop all work" yadda yadda yadda. The quartz countertops were going in the next day so I let them put them in...only to have the town inspector come and scream at us. No fine, but we had to pull permits for the remainder of the electrical and plumbing. Very annoying and cost us a few hundred.

My suggestion is that if you are on a main street, pull the permits. If you are on a back road, chance it and get your garbage out of sight.

See...I'm OK with this as a possible "punishment." Yell at me all you want. Fine me a reasonable amount. It's still going to save me a ton over having someone else do it.

Good call re. the garbage. I'm hoping to get one of those Bagster things for the old deck demo and just put it in the driveway out of sight.

Actually, in NJ you can get a permit to do the work yourself. You simply sign a statement stating you are doing the work and you avoid the requirements of having a license contractor and insurance.

 

[glumpy]

Buddy of mine was buying a house and it turned out the deck was built without a permit, so the home inspector wouldn't sign off on it. Ended up being a big hassle for the seller. I'm not sure exactly what it entailed, but just something to think about. I'm sure this is heavily area-dependent...this was in NJ.

When we bought our house several years ago the owner gave us a last minute disclosure that the septic system off the barn was unpermitted. I was pretty po'd actually--in part because we were well into the contract signing before this came out and it would have been a hassle to start over. They knocked off a fair amount and we took it.

Further info--this is a 1300sf 2-story structure with its own electric service, hvac, 3/4 bath and running water into an unfinished kitchen. We bought with the expectations of it becoming a MIL house, and after 6 years there is a family, friends of ours who are interested in moving in. We make arrangements to complete construction--which basically consists of interior finishes and a couple kitchen circuits. Come to find out that the county doesn't have a record of any of the original permits either--though they obviously were in place for the services--so they say "do what you want". Though there are county restrictions on number of houses on the property this pre-existing structure is an unexpected exception.

Fast track construction, family moves in, and we reappraise for value...it's exactly the same. No more no less--inflation over 7 years in this market has maintained enough value despite the fact that this house is too large to define as a MIL house, and since the zoning is for single dwelling properties that means that there is legally no second structure on the property. ummmmm....that leads to other issues which are irrelevant to the point at hand.

The point--we have discovered that the septic system in insubstantial. Or at least--after so many years it needs pumping out. So now we have to pull a permit to have work done on an unlicensed septic system for a structure which does not exist and which may or may not perk. <_<

News at seven.

 

[Fat Nick]

We redid the floors (pulled carpet and laid the wood), and demo'd the kitchen. Like an idiot, I left the garbage bags in the front of the house too long and we got the big sticker on the window to, "stop all work" yadda yadda yadda. The quartz countertops were going in the next day so I let them put them in...only to have the town inspector come and scream at us. No fine, but we had to pull permits for the remainder of the electrical and plumbing. Very annoying and cost us a few hundred.

My suggestion is that if you are on a main street, pull the permits. If you are on a back road, chance it and get your garbage out of sight.

See...I'm OK with this as a possible "punishment." Yell at me all you want. Fine me a reasonable amount. It's still going to save me a ton over having someone else do it.

Good call re. the garbage. I'm hoping to get one of those Bagster things for the old deck demo and just put it in the driveway out of sight.

Actually, in NJ you can get a permit to do the work yourself. You simply sign a statement stating you are doing the work and you avoid the requirements of having a license contractor and insurance.

No, I know that I can get a permit to do it myself. I just don't want to due to the time it takes to wait for various inspections (see original post). My options are basically to do it myself without permits on the timeframe I need, or just pay someone to do the whole thing.

 

[Fat Nick]

Buddy of mine was buying a house and it turned out the deck was built without a permit, so the home inspector wouldn't sign off on it. Ended up being a big hassle for the seller. I'm not sure exactly what it entailed, but just something to think about. I'm sure this is heavily area-dependent...this was in NJ.

When we bought our house several years ago the owner gave us a last minute disclosure that the septic system off the barn was unpermitted. I was pretty po'd actually--in part because we were well into the contract signing before this came out and it would have been a hassle to start over. They knocked off a fair amount and we took it.

Further info--this is a 1300sf 2-story structure with its own electric service, hvac, 3/4 bath and running water into an unfinished kitchen. We bought with the expectations of it becoming a MIL house, and after 6 years there is a family, friends of ours who are interested in moving in. We make arrangements to complete construction--which basically consists of interior finishes and a couple kitchen circuits. Come to find out that the county doesn't have a record of any of the original permits either--though they obviously were in place for the services--so they say "do what you want". Though there are county restrictions on number of houses on the property this pre-existing structure is an unexpected exception.

Fast track construction, family moves in, and we reappraise for value...it's exactly the same. No more no less--inflation over 7 years in this market has maintained enough value despite the fact that this house is too large to define as a MIL house, and since the zoning is for single dwelling properties that means that there is legally no second structure on the property. ummmmm....that leads to other issues which are irrelevant to the point at hand.

The point--we have discovered that the septic system in insubstantial. Or at least--after so many years it needs pumping out. So now we have to pull a permit to have work done on an unlicensed septic system for a structure which does not exist and which may or may not perk. <_<

News at seven.

So having worked my summers in college laying out septic and drain fields, I can say 100% that I wouldn't ever mess with anything septic-related without making sure everything is approved and up to code. A seller would need to knock off a ton of money for me to jump into this. I know I sound like a huge hypocrit here given that this is my thread, but septic done wrong can be major $$. I've seen the disgusting results of poorly installed systems. Just imagine raw sewage bubbling up through your yard...Not only do you risk major back-up of some nasty nasty stuff, but depending on where you are and where it runs off to, you can even get hit for environmental clean-up charges, which can be huge money.

I hope everything works out for you and that at a minimum maybe you need a bigger tank and/or extensions of the leach field. Occasional pumpings are not abnormal, but if you need them even before the struture is permanently occupied, you'll probably have major issues down the road.

 

[Jack White]

Your primary worry will be suspicious neighbors who can find out if a permit has been pulled. I would recommend doing all work at night. Do all of the power sawing inside. Place mattresses on walls for sound muffling, think ghetto recording studio.

The nailing is going to be the really hard part. Wait until there is a stormy night, and every time it thunders you can shoot the nail gun.

Like Andy did.

 

[top dog]

I'm surprised by the amount of neighbors that have reported people. I can't imagine ever seeing my neighbor working on a home improvement and thinking.. "Hmmm.. I wonder if they have permits? I should call the city."

What is wrong with people?

 

[Gawain]

I'm surprised by the amount of neighbors that have reported people. I can't imagine ever seeing my neighbor working on a home improvement and thinking.. "Hmmm.. I wonder if they have permits? I should call the city."

What is wrong with people?

I've never called the village, but I've been tempted to twice.

Once when I was an hour late for work because someone was delivering a manufactured home down our dead end street without notice and the street was blocked for an hour and once when I blew a tire on a nail left scattered about by the guy that lives to the south of me. If you're going to do work on the sly, make sure you're not pissing other people off in the process.

 

[comfortably numb]

I'm surprised by the amount of neighbors that have reported people. I can't imagine ever seeing my neighbor working on a home improvement and thinking.. "Hmmm.. I wonder if they have permits? I should call the city."

What is wrong with people?

Only #######s and old people would do this

 

[Fat Nick]

I'm surprised by the amount of neighbors that have reported people. I can't imagine ever seeing my neighbor working on a home improvement and thinking.. "Hmmm.. I wonder if they have permits? I should call the city."

What is wrong with people?

I've never called the village, but I've been tempted to twice.

Once when I was an hour late for work because someone was delivering a manufactured home down our dead end street without notice and the street was blocked for an hour and once when I blew a tire on a nail left scattered about by the guy that lives to the south of me. If you're going to do work on the sly, make sure you're not pissing other people off in the process.

Doing it just because you wonder if someone pulled permits and are nosey is a real Richard move.

Along those lines, I can't blame someone for calling something in as retribution for a poorly planned job that inconveniences others. That just goes back to common courtesy. I couldn't imagine doing something that would impact others and not talking to them about it first. I talk to my neighbor before running my chipper because it's so loud...I couldn't even imagine blocking access to our street without letting people know.

 

[comfortably numb]

When that time comes I plan to just play stupid and say the wife handled all these things.

Can you elaborate here? You said your wife handled all the permits? How exactly did you play that angle? My wife would totally be on-board with such schemeing, but I'm not sure how I could swing it so someone actually believed she played a role in this.

She was the one to go down and pulled the permits. She actually dealt with contractors being home all day. When I was confronted by the council I just said Yea the fence is not in the location of your drawing. I said the contractor just put it elsewhere and didn't follow the drawing. I said my wife noticed it afterwards but we didn't push to change.

 

[belljr]

You need permits to put in hardwood?