presented by
To permit a bathroom or not?
Hey everyone!
This is my first post on bigger pockets! I just closed on my 2nd house hack and am currently planning renovations. I’m having trouble deciding the best way to go about adding a bathroom to the house.
My question
Should I use a permit to add a bathroom to my house, or could I get away with doing it unpermitted if I’m confident everything will be up to code?
More Details
The house is an existing 4/2 that I’m converting to a 6/3. Here’s the basic plan:
Project #1 (pictured below): convert the existing laundry room into a bathroom, convert unused space in the shared full bath into a laundry room, add a small hallway to access the laundry room. Only demo involved is taking down one small bathroom closet in the full bath.
Project #2 (not pictured): add a wall in the living room and upstairs loft to add bedrooms #5 and #6.
Currently, the plan is to use a permit for project #1, and do project #2 without a permit. This is because 1) I don’t want the city knowing that I am renting out all of my bedrooms, and adding 2 extra bedrooms is a red flag, and 2) whenever I eventually sell the house, I will remove the living room wall and convert it back to a 4 bedroom house if I need to. Not too expensive to do that.
Now for project #1, I was planning on using a permit because I want it to be on the tax records when I sell the house as a 4 bed 3 bath house. The idea is to have that 3rd bathroom add value to the house when I sell. But lately I have been having second thoughts about the permits. Here are my reasons:
1) The permits will add about a month of extra renovation time. I’ve heard one horror story of a garage conversion taking a whole year because the city was requiring a whole bunch of stuff to get fixed.
2) The permits add extra costs in general.
3) I have a pretty badly cracked driveway that runs to the back of the house that I’m worried the city will see and make me replace/repair. I saw Craig Curelop’s instagram post recently that the exact same thing happened to him.
4) I don’t believe I would have that much trouble selling the house with an unpermitted bathroom. I would of course disclose it.
5) Not having the city involved ensures they won’t find any other random things that I would need to fix to bring up to code.
Everyone I’ve talked to has a different opinion on the matter (go figure). Some say that they do flips all the time without permits and never have problems, others say it’s worth it to get a permit for later on down the road. My contractor has done it both ways. Anyone have experience with this and can offer input?
