Looking for any good statistics related to building unpermitted housing.

January 26, 2015 5:06 AM

So what I'm looking for is any national statistics (or as close as I can get) on the area of building unpermitted additions on housing. As in guy buys a home. Guy moves in and discover that third bedroom he built is unpermitted. Or that connected treehouse. Or the homemade bomb shelter. thoughts on where I could find such things?
posted by rileyray3000 to Home & Garden (3 answers total)

Also interested in thing like "house burns down and insurance doesn't pay because guy did the electrical himself", or whether a fancy renovated kitchen really adds to the home's value if the renovation officially didn't happen? Or are you really just after extra spaces that shouldn't exist?
Not that I have sources for statistics on any of this, but I suspect the insurance-related statistics are out there.
posted by aimedwander at 6:37 AM on January 26, 2015

Response by poster: more of the latter. I want to know how many times people buy a house and then have to deal with unpermitted additions from the previous owner.
posted by rileyray3000 at 8:01 AM on January 26, 2015

I own a rental house which used to have a really big garage and now has a normal size garage and a "den" in back of it (as in, at some point the previous owner walled off the back third of the garage and made it into its own room). This was never permitted, but at some point the county shrugged and grandfathered it in and now it is counted in the square footage of the house. So insurance is fine with it since the county is fine with it.

I suspect this is going to vary a lot by jurisdiction.
posted by rabbitrabbit at 8:51 AM on January 26, 2015