Professional · Clover, SC · Member since 2015 · 13 posts · 3 votes
I will apologize first off for not having as much information to provide as I would like but this is a sensitive issue to a family member which I cannot get much information from.
I have an aunt who lives in Texas that has a property worth around $200K with a mortgage between $50K - 100K (my best guess). She is really wanting to get out from under the house but is afraid to sell it due to some unpermitted additions that were completed on the house. She is fearful of going through a normal sales process with an agent that the non-permitted work will cause the deal to fall through and cause her to get the unpermitted sections of the house fixed or torn down. She does not have the money to get these issues re-mediated.
Other than this issue the house is good working order and condition, has already had some foundation work but otherwise is sound. The unpermitted work was done well from what I know but in the end it is still unpermitted.
The advice I am seeking is if there are any additional means for her to sell the house in which she could mitigate her risk on the work that was done to her house.
Contractor · Raleigh, NC · Member since 2014 · 651 posts · 510 votes
10y
@Marc Ver Wayne Selling by unconventional means will likely result in a much lower sales price. The straightest path forward is to get the work permitted. If indeed a good job was done then it should not be much of a problem. If the house is worth $200k and she owes $50k-100k, then she certainly does have the resources to make things right.
From my experience I have never seen an appraiser, bank underwriter or inspector ask for any permits on a property being sold in Ny or Pa but I will also tell you this following.
In NY I am selling a property in the finger lakes area. They have a lot of things in the sales agreement that I have not seen before. One of them, written right into the contract wording is that the seller must provide the buyer with a current survey. I had my attorney check the history of the deeds and found the deed listed the person who did the last survey. She had me sign an affidavit that I had not done any improvements to the property since I had owned it. So the previous survey along with the affidavit was sufficient to satisfy all parties.
I have talked with surveyors in the past and asked when they do their job, if they check to see if permits had been pulled. None said they would check for that.
So long story short, I would not think you would have trouble, but look over the local board of realtors purchase agreement, and see if it asks for a current survey. Even if it does I doubt it would be an issue because nobody seems to check for non-permitted work.
Maybe talk with local appraisers, realtors and surveyors to see whats common in your area.
One more thing to look over is the sellers disclosure. See if it talks about improvements to the land, and that all work was permitted. You would not want anyone to misrepresent the truth on that topic, if the improvement had some type of zoning issue. In some state the sellers disclosure is mandatory, such as Pa. Some states it is not, such as NY. If it is mandatory and the sellers disclosure asks the person who is filling it out if any non-permitted work was done, it does not matter how you sell the property because you will/should disclose the issue.