Building a single-family outside of code

October 3, 2006 3:30 AM

What are the consequences of building a single-family residence outside of code?

Preparing for a house addition, I've been living under a bureaucratic cloud for months. I've gone to the meetings, dotted all the i's, crossed all the t's. I've submitted the required forms in triplicate. Told "Let's see you dance" with a gun pointed at my feet, I've executed my best version of the Swimmer and Watusi. When the addition's finally complete next year, I'll receive a "certificate of occupancy" -- suitable for framing! -- attesting that the building's up to code.

My question is this. Many houses nearby were built by do-it-yourselfers who didn't give the building department the time of day. Some are shacks constructed from duct tape, spearmint gum and piano wire. Others are impressive homes by veteran carpenters who enjoyed stretching the rules a bit. Either way, you won't find a certificate of occupancy hanging on the wall. And this isn't a crime, as far as I know.

Even though building outside of code is technically legal, what are the negative effects for a home-owner? Does it impact the eventual sale of the house? Increase the insurance? Make the homeowner liable for personal injury suits? Run up the property taxes?

I know that determining code compliance is a tricky business, because older homes are grandfathered in. I'm curious about the malcontents who blithely ignore the code when they build.

posted by Gordion Knott to home & garden (16 comments total)

A few years ago, there was a guy in Toronto that built a house without bothering to get a building permit - he was later forced to tear it down. The same thing could happen to you unless you reside in an area that has a very lax policy when it comes to this type of activity (which I doubt).You are probably being forced to dance to their tune because they don't want to end up on the wrong side of a lawsuit if something went wrong based on plans that they had approved.
posted by DonM at 4:20 AM on October 3, 2006

No one is going to buy a house without having it inspected and the inspector is going to red-flag work that doesn't meet code. I guess that if you never plan to sell then it's not a big deal to you but most folks don't plan to own their houses for the rest of their lives. Also, these codes are not arbitrary, they were formulated for a good reason. Do you really want to live in a house that might fall down or catch fire?
posted by octothorpe at 4:28 AM on October 3, 2006

Well if the neighbors are pushy enough they could get an injunction. This happened in a rather posh town.
http://www.topix.net/forum/city/marblehead-ma/TIB9A0BJLEE3I0NB2
posted by Gungho at 4:48 AM on October 3, 2006

Those houses are really hard to sell. Even if the things are up to code but just not permitted, records will show the square footage and number of rooms it used to have and buyers will know.
posted by Melsky at 4:51 AM on October 3, 2006

In California: my parents bought a 2-story house. In preparation for selling it, years later, discovered that the chimney was out of code. They had to rip it out.
posted by muddgirl at 5:14 AM on October 3, 2006

Much depends on where you live. Here's a story of a local builder who didn't go through the permit process. Especially interesting is the fact that the seller must disclose non-code additions during a sale.
posted by frykitty at 5:20 AM on October 3, 2006

it varies from place to place ... and in some places, it can depend on how you're looked at by the local powers that be or how much they like wielding power ... not to mention how nosy the neighbors are

back when there was a battle creek township, a guy wanted to move a house and discovered that the permit to do so was 150 bucks

the fine for failing to do so was 50 bucks, and that's if they caught you ... he did the obvious thing

local building codes are full of quirky rules and quirky enforcements
posted by pyramid termite at 6:14 AM on October 3, 2006

Just pure speculation, but I would guess that your insurance company would have a very easy out if anything ever happened to your home, whether it was related to the addition or not. Also, here is a previous question about a couple wanting to buy a home, but they were potentially scared off by the fact that an addition was not up to code.
posted by shinynewnick at 6:39 AM on October 3, 2006

Even though building outside of code is technically legal

Uhh, no. If it was legal, there wouldn't be punishments. The building code is part of the law, either part of the local ordinance, or a set of administrative rules created under the local ordinance. How they are enforced depends greatly on the municipality. It's not "legal" to build outside of the code, it is "illegal" to do so. You expose yourself to a range of punishments at the whim of the building code and the enforcing municipality.

It sounds like your municipality is not very keen on enforcement. However, that type of thing can change very quickly (especially if they start to need some quick cash).
posted by MrZero at 7:05 AM on October 3, 2006

It sounds like your municipality is not very keen on enforcement. However, that type of thing can change very quickly (especially if they start to need some quick cash). - MrZero

Or if there's some tragedy that can be attributed to non-conforming structures and then the local politicians decide a crackdown might protect more people from getting hurt and/or make them look like they're taking action.
posted by raedyn at 7:29 AM on October 3, 2006

No one is going to buy a house without having it inspected and the inspector is going to red-flag work that doesn't meet code. I guess that if you never plan to sell then it's not a big deal to you but most folks don't plan to own their houses for the rest of their lives. Also, these codes are not arbitrary, they were formulated for a good reason. Do you really want to live in a house that might fall down or catch fire?

Well, yes and no. A lot of things that affect the structural integrity of a building (such as foundation rebar, framing, shear panel nailing) won't be evident or even visible to an inspector. They'll be able to knock you for things like guardrails not being the correct height or having the correct spacing, having a window in the door to your garage...stuff like that, a lot of which is easily fixable.

What a building department will really keep its eye open for is illegal development, like adding on a room without ever filing for/pulling a building permit or going beyond the floor area allowed by that jurisdiction's code. City inspectors are generally assigned to specific areas (at least in my town), so if they're driving around going to other jobsites and see some construction going on that they know they're not inspecting, they'll bust people for it. If the structure violates municipal code for area, height, or something like having two dwelling units where only one is allowed, it'll have to come down. If it might possibly be acceptable, you'll be fined and have to try to permit the structure retroactively, which is difficult, because as stated earlier, a lot of the structural stuff won't be visible to the inspectors.

And MrZero's insinuation that this is mainly a money-making proposition for whatever municipality is correct.

Those houses are really hard to sell. Even if the things are up to code but just not permitted, records will show the square footage and number of rooms it used to have and buyers will know.

This is also correct. The county assessor has a file on your property listing improvements and square footage for any structures. Deviations from those at selling time would probably be a bad thing.
posted by LionIndex at 7:55 AM on October 3, 2006

I know of two houses in my current jurisdiction that were built too tall, according to local codes. One was completely torn down. The other had the roof removed and a new, flat, roof put on in its place.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 8:08 AM on October 3, 2006

Where I live, building without permits actually decreases your property taxes. The tax assessment on the structure is adjusted based on the value of renovations done on the structure as reported on building permits. No permits, no tax increase. And because the value of an unmaintained structure on a property decreases over time, your taxes on the structure go down.

If you do a renovation that does not increase the square footage of the house, then it may not be obvious that permits were required for renovations, and may not impact the resale of the property. I do not think it is routine for real estate agents and/or house inspectors to pull building permits issued for a house for the last 25 years or so when closing a real estate transaction.

Here's an example: in one municipality, a permit is required to reshingle your house, even if you are not altering the structure of the roof. (insanity! it is the only municipality in the county with this requirement!) So say a homeowner reshingled his/her house, and sold it 10-15 years from now. Do you really think that will impact the saleability of the house? Would you, as a buyer, look at 10-15 year old shingles and think about permits? Would a house inspector? And even if you did due diligence, and figured out there was no reshingling permit (horrors!), would you hold up the sale of a house because somebody didn't jump through a permit process (assuming the inspector deemed the roof sound)? I doubt it.
posted by crazycanuck at 9:07 AM on October 3, 2006

in the county office i worked at, the tax assessor reviewed ariel photos looking for illegal work. when they found one, all sorts of grief would abound.
posted by lester's sock puppet at 9:17 AM on October 3, 2006

We did a renovation without a permit. Basically, we didn't add outside of the existing deck structure. The person that did the work is personally known to my family and is a professional in the industry, so the work is done properly and well. Basically, where I am, if the "addition" just evolves they don't really seem to care so much. So say we had a deck, and then we decided we wanted a screened in porch, so we did that, and added some outlets to plug in the bug zapper or whatever, and then somewhere down the line we decided that we really wanted to make that into a dining room with a laundry room off the side, nothing would really happen. Of course, we didn't do any excavations and we didn't do anything too much with actually modifying the house. The footprint of the "addition" appears in all of the surveys of our house. So, for us, no big. Of course, the neighbors could have ratted us out, but one of them has a blatantly illegal structure behind his house and the other is drunk all the time, so our circumstances were pretty manageable. YMMV and so forth.
posted by Medieval Maven at 9:18 AM on October 3, 2006

It depends on where you live, and what the local officials are like. One of my relatives is in that field, and if you're under his jurisdiction, then man, you do not want to screw up. You will absolutely be tearing down whatever you build. That's even if you make an innocent mistake -- if you completely ignore code, I have no idea what he would do, but it would not be good. I'm pretty sure you'd not only be redoing everything, you'd also be paying fines and making enemies (a lot of town officials hang out with town policemen, by the way).

But I assume there are places where nobody cares much, either. I haven't heard of any towns like that, but I guess if you live in a really rural area, or just a really laid-back area, you might be okay -- especially if you look like you're within code (e.g., you're not supposed to build within X feet of the property line, but you built within X-1 feet, or you're only cleared for two bedrooms, and you call the third a library on the plans -- it's not immediately obvious).

Something else to consider: If you're contracting out, rather than going completely DIY, you may not find a builder who's willing to work outside of code. Most of them are relatively local, and they don't want to piss off the planning & zoning officers any more than you do.

Also, from what I understand -- although I know less about this -- you won't be able to sell the house unless the issue's fixed. When my family moved (in a different town from the above), the inspector we hired looked at the house, looked at the plans, and had us call the sellers to tell them the jig was up and it was time to get the place within code.
posted by booksandlibretti at 7:25 PM on October 3, 2006