Contractor said county might baloon my renovation to 4x cost!
March 10, 2015 8:44 PM   Subscribe

I'm looking at buying a house that is too small, but has an upstairs attic room that I thought could be renovated--adding a long shed dormer along the back and extending the wall to a 3' knee. Whether or not I can make the changes at a reasonable cost will determine whether I want to buy the house. I talked to a contractor and he said costs depend on the county.

The contractor looked at the house and considered what I wanted, but said that because the house is old, the dormers need reinforcements underneath--he estimated the total renovation at $40-60k, but said that once the county gets wind of the renovations, they might require changes to things, which would trigger the need for changes to other things which would trigger the need for changes to other things. Basically he said the county could make the cost balloon out of control if they wanted to be mean about it, and they often do want to be mean about it. How can I find out, in a matter of days, whether adding dormers will cause this cascade of regulatory hurdles? The house is in Atlanta ,GA (Decatur city limits, actually) and I'm out of state.
posted by brenton to Law & Government (15 answers total)
 
The best way to know is to submit plans for what you want to do to the building department. What he describes is a real concern. In renovating an attic, the roof dormers can be just the start. The "ceiling joists" may not be strong enough to be floor joists. There can also be requirements about the minimum square footage of a room (and what height a sloping ceiling needs to be at to count the square footage) and egress / window requirements.
posted by slidell at 9:39 PM on March 10, 2015


All kinds of things - electrical things, structural things, fire safety things, plumbing things - that are grandfathered in to the house as it is now could be triggered for required upgrades upon renovation, depending on what the renovations entail.

Unless your planning department is super-efficient, it's going to be longer than a few days to get the info you want, if only because you'd need to submit plans for all the things you want to do, which will probably take more than a few days.
posted by rtha at 10:16 PM on March 10, 2015 [4 favorites]


Don't buy this house. There are so many ways it can go wrong and only one narrow possibility that it will go right. Sometimes you can go into the planning department in person and get an idea of how they think about certain proposed options but there is no way you can guarantee ahead to time that they would approve an addition that is not up to current code if they haven't seen and considered a detailed set of plans.
posted by metahawk at 10:42 PM on March 10, 2015 [11 favorites]


A big part of buying a house is reducing unknowns. This is (apparently) a pretty big unknown. The only mitigations appear to be luck and money. Proceed accordingly.
posted by humboldt32 at 2:00 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


The only way you will know is to have plans drawn up and a pre-inspection done by county building officials. Problem is, you can't really do that for a house that you do not yet own.

However, if you call the local building department, and talk to them - they might be able to help you. The answer is in the building department. Nothing anyone says here is the answer. The inspector who works with your contractor will determine the issue. Call the building department, and talk to them.

In many jurisdictions, there is a 50% rule. If you are renovating 50% (or more) of the items in a given space, then all items must be brought up to current code. Talking to the building inspector, you may find out that your jurisdiction considers the dormers not enough of a change to the whole house to trigger bringing the whole house up to current code.

Call the building department.
posted by Flood at 4:42 AM on March 11, 2015 [3 favorites]


I've got to agree with metahawk: don't buy this house. But if you insist on going through with the sale, first get another opinion from another contractor.
posted by easily confused at 6:42 AM on March 11, 2015


Gotta agree with the others saying to pass on this house. Buying a home which you know to be too small and, thus, plan to do major construction on it immediately, is just not a good idea. There are plenty of homes out there that meet your space requirements.

I'm also leery of any contractor who says stuff like "...once the county gets wind of the renovations." This almost sounds like he isn't planning to pull the proper permits, and doing the renovation on the downlow. The county, by law, has to "get wind of" any major, structural work.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:47 AM on March 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


The contractor sounds fishy. Just saying that "when the county gets involved... " leads me to believe he's the contractor who doesn't pull permits and cuts corners. Dump this guy ASAP. Get a second opinion. Call the county building inspector and see if they can stop by for a quick opinion.
posted by Gungho at 6:57 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


... or a contractor with lots of experience pulling permits from a department that processes them in an arbitrary and capricious manner. That's exactly what I'd expect any competent contractor to say when he's exasperated with the uncertain nature of such a permit process.
posted by humboldt32 at 8:29 AM on March 11, 2015 [2 favorites]


They aren't going to arbitrarily make you do things to the renovation, what he's implying is that doing a job 100% to code will cost 4x what he's quoted you. So, the other question to ask is what is he leaving out that the county might object to?

That's also a CYA statement that allows a lowball estimate with a good excuse for when it's time to discuss the added costs.
posted by hwyengr at 9:02 AM on March 11, 2015


Agree with humboldt32. I work for a GC and we run into this quite a bit. Without a proper set of plans and review of said plans from the building department in your municipality, you're pretty much just guessing. We have had similar conversations with folks who wanted to build additions to existing houses, add another storey, etc. Sometimes they're so committed to the idea of buying that specific property that they don't always want to hear us say "That's probably going to get really complicated and potentially cost you a lot more than you anticipated, especially once the city gets involved." Working in existing buildings can get really tangly and set off a chain reaction of upgrades required to bring things to code.

Flood has it. Call the building department and ask to speak to a plans reviewer and/or inspector. If you're serious about this, get a proper set of plans drawn up. We're constantly asked "How much to do XYZ?" We can never accurately answer this without plans.
posted by futureisunwritten at 9:06 AM on March 11, 2015 [1 favorite]


They aren't going to arbitrarily make you do things to the renovation, what he's implying is that doing a job 100% to code will cost 4x what he's quoted you.

This has not been my experience, from either side of the counter (6 years as a Planner and two houses acting as my own General contractor). I see no reason to think that's what the contractor is implying at all.

I agree they're not supposed to, but that doesn't mean it's unheard of. My current city's Development Review department runs roughshod over applicants like they invented the term "ad hoc".
posted by humboldt32 at 9:19 AM on March 11, 2015


Take pictures of the house. Go talk to the county building permit folks. Most of the time, they'd far rather have the discussion with you prior to any building than after un-permitted work has been done. And talk to another 2 or 3 contractors.

In the long run, probably better not to buy a house that needs a lot of updating, or at least get an inspection that lists every update that will be needed to meet current code, and reduce the offer correspondingly. Construction, builders, contractors - it's all a massive pain in the neck and takes more time, money and effort than you think.
posted by theora55 at 10:45 AM on March 11, 2015


Structural engineer here. Don't buy this house, you will regret it, based on the parameters of your question and your timeline for figuring it out. The phrasing used by the contractor is a huge red flag.

If you end up having more than a couple days to figure this out, talk to 3 or 4 other local contractors and get their opinions. Do not consider hiring a contractor who hints at doing shady work without the proper permits.
posted by hootenatty at 4:36 PM on March 11, 2015


Random potshot here. Ignoring the shady contractor language(which yea, no, they're basically saying they're going to cut corners) i know a guy who had a house fire, and decided to do a massive remodel+additions as part of the rehab.

He did exactly what you're describing with the dormer and everything, and it turned in to a death march. The city/county DID have quite a bit to say about it, and it had to be revised several times and turned in to a MUCH larger project than the original plan. It was already a horribly expensive project, but went something like 30k over an already very generous budget.

The house is done now, and he lives in it. But what initially started as crashing at a friends conveniently empty rental/part time office for a few months turned in to signing a lease on a nearby apartment when it turned in to the big dig, with tons of delays and forced alterations and bla bla bla. In total i think it took over a year to sort out, i'm not kidding. It might have even been close to two reflecting back on it.

I don't think he'd do it again, and he only powered through because he loved the house and... what else do you do when you're already knee deep?
posted by emptythought at 5:08 PM on March 11, 2015


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