Building department doesnt like it when i do my own repairs
Rehabber · Syracuse, NY · Member since 2012 · 29 posts · 7 votes
Went to the building dept in my town today, I have some electrical work that needs to be completed in order to get a clean certificate of occupancy, anyway they said that i needed a licensed electrician to do all of the repairs. This is my eighth flip in the same town, has never been a problem, have always done the work myself and pulled the proper permits. They had me sign an oath stating that I am the owner and will be occupying the property and am responsible for the work. I am planning on getting the C/O in my name as soon as the list of repairs has been completed. Im going to move into this flip until I sell it. Do you think there will be problems when its time to sell (probably six months to get it under contract and sold)?
Yea. Some inspectors go so far overboard, its ridiculous.
The one in Lansing really turned me off to that town entirely - even though the prices are pretty good as are the rents. Its just not worth the hassle though.
I'll say this much, though. I do believe in pulling permits every time I get a house. Even if its only carpet and paint, I'll call the village and check that I don't need one just so they see that I'm reaching out and not trying to pull a fast one.
I've found that villages and inspectors tend to be a lot friendlier if you're at least putting in for the permits. I also think its well worth the $100 or $200 for the permits because then I get someone else looking at the work.
You'd be surprised how many little things the contractors will miss that might actually have some importance.
The other issue in pulling permits is that, if there are any problems with the house later on, I can show I had a licensed contractor do the work and had it inspected by the village as well. I've made a "reasonable" effort to ensure the house was safe.
I'm not sure people who do the work themselves could say that if they're not licensed and if no inspection was done. I know they can try to claim that the work was done before they bought the house. But I don't think insurance adjusters or attorneys are that dumb. They can easily tell how old some of the wiring, hvac, plumbing stuff is and can do the math from there.
Yes. Given they now have the address and your name, I would expect a visit from the inspectors as soon as you put a for sale sign in the yard. Cities are getting stricter and stricter about rehab. I've ran into this, too. On one rehab, I ended up hiring a general contract (only GCs can pull permits except for owner occupants), licensed plumber and licensed electrician. In another case, I took back a property from a defaulted borrower and had to jackhammer up the tile and concrete in the basement, rip out cabinets and walls and re-do plumbing and electrical to make the inspectors happy. In that city, they building department had an aggressive program of inspecting all new for sale listings and comparing improvements to permit histories. On this property, some of the changes were decades old. I still had to fix them.
Time to hire a licensed electrician.
I don't foresee a problem, you've got a permit & you will have a signed-off inspection. They will probably try to nit-pick your work, perhaps leave them a juicy tidbit to "find" and "bust" you for - they will always need to find something to prove how "smart" they are.
When my father pulled an electrical permit for his house, the inspector handed him a math test- ohm's law, load calcs & what not. Dad handed it back & told the inspector he was doing the work himself, under the guidance of his brother, a licensed *journeyman* electrician. He said the inspector's face seemed to "fall" when the inspector came back for the final inspection & pulled the cover off the panel & he saw how everything was neat, organized & correct. Then the inspector asked "who did the work"...
Of course, he still found something to "bust" us for, a change in the building code that year that required *lighted* switches at the top & bottom of the basement stairs.
I insure about 9000 units between apartments and HOA's... and my 4 largest claims in the past 6 years were the result of "DIY" electrical work. One resulted in a fatality. There are a lot of things I am willing to try but I draw the line at electrical work because I have seen the results.
Im not worried about the electrical work. My concern is with the building dept and the oath you sign on every permit application stating that it must be owner occupied. I usually move into one of my completed flips. The oath doesnt state how long I have to live in the house. Its a gray area, i just dont want the town taking me to court. Thanks for all your responses.
So far it hasn't been a problem for me. In my state I can do most of my own work including electrical and plumbing because I'm the owner of the property. I'm not required to occupy the property.
Yes, same here. It has never been an issue for me, either. I have friends who invest in neighboring areas who can only pull their own permit if it's their primary residence.
It seems to be a township/city ordinance and is not uniform county or state-wide.
You're already telling us that you will be living there, so you're not lying to the city. I don't see an issue regarding the owner-occupancy. You can always show utility bills to that address, too.
I've done it the same way, mostly so I can do my own plumbing, which is allowed with signed affidavit for OO. Permit and inspections still required. For electrical a licensed electrician is still needed, no matter if OO or rental.
The gray area may come into play because you say you move in after the rehab. In my town, they want me to specifically live there already before the plumbing starts. Requires a lot of gray matter if the flip house comes with stolen copper etc :)
dont even get me started on this topic....
first house 3 yrs ago i had no problem pulling permits as a non homeowner. the next one, i had to switch the "homestead" status at the assessor's office, walk over to the building department and pull permits. but that raised my taxes by over $800 on my house since i could not switch back that year. so it was not worth the effort.
they are still requiring permits and i talked to a few inspectors and asked them why... they said "because lots of investors are doing shady work and the quality is bad/endangers the tenants.
at that point i said, "but that does not make sense. that's why i am PULLING a permit, so you can come and inspect MY work and protect the tenants". he blinked 20 times before answering and said "Yeah, that makes sense and you are right, but there's nothing i can do".
he also said that those rules are set at the state level, not the city level. not sure how inaccurate that statement is.
so now i have to pay contractors just to pull permits and i still do the work. the whole thing just makes me shake my head in disbelief...
Yep I had the same problem! I said the same thing as George P., isn't that the point of an inspection? I am pulling a permit and scheduling an inspection to make sure I do the work correctly! You run into shady jobs when there are no permits pulled! But people trying to do it correctly get screwed.
My problem was plumbing. I bought a foreclosure that needed a complete plumbing rehab, from the water lines in to the vent/waste pipes leaving. Tore out the whole kitchen and bathroom. I ran all the plumbing with the help of a licensed plumber (but not licensed in the city of minneapolis, which is needed in minneapolis). Pulled a permit and had the inspector come out, he was in the house for no more than 5 seconds and walked out saying he can't inspect it.
I called the building department office and came to the conclusion that I can't do any plumbing work on the house unless I live in it, and by law I can't live in a house that doesn't have a working toilet. I had to hire a licensed plumber to go to the city and pull a permit. He charged me $500 in addition to the cost of the permit (which I already pulled and paid for once).
I am putting in another bathroom and do not want to pull another plumbing permit, but I know it will bite me in the arse if I don't. I don't understand why people trying to do the right thing get crapped on!
Use to be, an owner occupant could do their own work, no longer here, what can be done is very limited. Technically, if my light switch goes out I need to call an electrician.....(yeh, right!) At least we can still hang a ceiling fan and move a can opener in the kitchen to another outlet!
OTH, if I were to add on, I'd have the el. contractor do it.
Citys don't have much data on the inside of a residence to compare anything to, usually a room floor plan, newer homes they will have the prints, but usually not the electrical and plumbing as residential plans may not require them, they leave that to the electrician and utility company and plumbers. Adding another bathroom would pop up, putting a stool and sink in an existing utlity room might not.
My impression has always been that NY was full of regulations and that an owner can't do much at all.
Oscar Martins I think the bottom line is that none of us can predict the outcome if your proceed. Maybe it will work out fine, maybe the inspectors will make you rip open walls.
My general impression is that cities are getting stricter about this. I suspect it has more to do with revenue than anything else. Collecting fees is a way to increase city revenue.
OTOH, I've looked at some houses that had incredibly shoddy work in them. Some work just won't pass muster, and requiring permits and inspections is a way a city can try to improve their "housing stock."
no, the bottom line is that they allow the homeowner to do renovations on their own when 95% of the homeowners are cluless when it comes to that stuff.
but thinking about it in a different way, they are pumping money back in the economy by us paying the contractors for something that we can technically do ourselves. like plumbing a bath. really? how hard is that? is it leaking? no. is it within 5-6 feet from a stack vent? yes. ok, pass.
YOU consider yourself to be "doing the right thing", but the building department official / code enforcement officer doesn't consider it to be that. Sometimes they are just doing their jobs, and the rules that they enforce aren't created by them in most cases. In my area, some of the rules are from the state, and some are from the local town - which of course makes it screwy working in different towns because one town's requirement can differ drastically from what the next town requires.
Does anybody think that this has anything to do with OP having done this 8 times in the same town? Are they possibley catching on to the fact that this is not the "typical" owner occupant repair work? I am not insinuating - I am asking.
If he's pulled permits eight times in the same town, odds are, he's a lot more qualified than the typical do-it-yourselfer, which is still apparently legal in that city. Any grumpiness he's encountering is probably related to "stealing work" from the inspector's friends - (the contractors that the inspector drinks beer with) - not safety.
It could also be jealousy - they see him making "big piles of cash" on deals, so to them he's both "rich" and "cheap"...
There is a gas line that goes out to the bbq grill that they want inspected by a licensed plumber, I told them I would disconnect the line from the grill myself and cap it, they approved. I asked if I could remove the old alarm system, their response was you need a licensed electrician lol, Im able to cap a gas line but cannot remove an alarm system with low voltage wiring, gotta love the building dept!
one of their standard requirements is to paint all exterior gas piping...their reason - to prevent rust. so let me get this straight. it has not rusted for 60 years, but now all of a sudden it will rust. lol
at least that does not require a permit. :)
If he's pulled permits eight times in the same town, odds are, he's a lot more qualified than the typical do-it-yourselfer, which is still apparently legal in that city. Any grumpiness he's encountering is probably related to "stealing work" from the inspector's friends - (the contractors that the inspector drinks beer with) - not safety.
It could also be jealousy - they see him making "big piles of cash" on deals, so to them he's both "rich" and "cheap"...
Although it could be true (anything is possible) I find that to be a somewhat wild assumption. But then again, I was only guessing as well.
Where my rental is, you are not supposed to patch holes in sheetrock without a permit. You can, though, replace windows without a permit...whatever.
Also, another thing I think is crazy; if the power gets shut off, You have to get the unit inspected by the city and approved before the power company will reactivate the power.
I received a phone call from head of the building dept this morning. He left a voicemail calling me a liar and telling me that I will need a licensed electrician to complete the work., Apparently, his assistant told him that I flip homes in the town. I reassured him I was moving in but will get a licensed electrician so there arent any more problems and that I didnt appreciate being called a liar. I will be sure to let his assistant know how I feel about her. Im tired of walking on eggshells for these people. Im moving onto another town because they arent receiving one more penny from me.
Just as I thought. They see what you are doing as flipping regardless that you owner occupy for a short period of time to get the rehab done and sell. Since you are really and truly just putting a slight twist on how you flip to work around the permit issue, do you really think they are being unreasonable against you as opposed to other flippers who don't do a work around? BTW, if you start telling folks off in the permit office, you better be able to back up your claims to move to another town, otherwise your life will be as difficult as can be if you don't. Why burn a bridge if there is a possiblity you might still be able to find good deals in that town and make it work without circumventing the permitting process?
i agree with brian. i'd bite my tongue and sweet talk them than burn that bridge. and trust me, i am more likely to burn a bridge than anyone i know. not proud of that, but just saying... pick your battles and the inspectors' office is not a good battle to fight. unlike corporations, they get paid no matter what..
As Joe Bertolino said I also draw the line with electrical work. I also know of a near fatality because of shabby electrical work. A licensed electrician will follow the local code and have the job inspected by his own inspector regardless of whether the local town is inspecting or not. This is because his livelyhood is on the line, he needs to be covered.
I don't think it willl serve you any good to fight with the building department on this one. No doubt about it you will now be on their radar. Stand strong on the right issues, step away from this one as I see you are wisely doing. As an outsider observing I would try and repair the relationship with the inspector and move on in that town or another.
I'd disagree, if a homeowner can do the work, the op is living there & willing to sign an"oath", they have no right to be calling him a liar. I'd be "educating" the inspector in this situation. They can be overruled, city hall can be beaten & I'd be the last one to be run out of town because an inspector had a personality problem.
I'd disagree, if a homeowner can do the work, the op is living there & willing to sign an"oath", they have no right to be calling him a liar. I'd be "educating" the inspector in this situation. They can be overruled, city hall can be beaten & I'd be the last one to be run out of town because an inspector had a personality problem.
and 4 months + lost income of $2k+ later, you'd have a moral victory. bravo!
i just dont see the point. that's all i am saying.
In my area, it's the power company themselves who have that requirement. I suspect it's because electricity has become so ingrained into our daily lives that they think some sort of illegal hook-up is in place while the power is shut off.