We are thinking of buying a house that had some unpermitted work done in the ’80’s that, as we understand, should have been permitted. We are not sure the extent of the work. It is either:
\na) an entire room was added to the back of the house
\nb) an existing enclosed porch (that already had electricity) was expanded and heat was added; or
\nc) heat was added to an existing enclosed porch.
\nSellers have been unclear about the extent of the work – they are selling their parents’ house and were kids when work was done. Also a bathroom was added in the basement. We do know that all this work was unpermitted. I have checked DOB and HPD websites – there is no C of O (house was built in 1910), no open permits, and no iCard.
\nOur lawyer, and the engineer who did the inspection, are urging caution, but don’t think closing will be a problem. Here are my questions:
\n1) How can we find out what was there before the work was done, if sellers do not have the plans? Would the City have any record?
\n2) what risks do we face if we buy this place? If we want to do work that needs permitting down the line, is DOB likely to question it? Require us to get permits for everything that should have been permitted before?
\n3) How do we find out whether we can get it legalized?
\nAny insights welcome!
\nPS I realize there was a similar question not too long ago, the (possibly critical??) difference here is that there are no outstanding\/open permits in the DOB records. Thanks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We are thinking of buying a house that had some unpermitted work done in the ’80’s that, as we understand, should have been permitted. We are not sure the extent of the work. It is either: a) an entire room was added to the back of the house b) an existing enclosed porch (that already…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24559,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"schneps_byline":"","schneps_post_style":"","schneps_post_source":"","schneps_syndicated_read_more":"","schneps_post_source_sitename":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_html":"","schneps_syndicated_thumb_src":"","schneps_post_source_shortname":"","schneps_post_source_url":"","schneps_post_source_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"districts":[],"class_list":["post-29123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-permits"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2009\/02\/buying-house-wu\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Buying house w\/unpermitted work?","url":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2009\/02\/buying-house-wu\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.brownstoner.com\/forum-archive\/2009\/02\/buying-house-wu\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":""},"articleSection":"Permits","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"backeast"}],"creator":["backeast"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Forum Archive","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2009-02-21T22:57:44Z","datePublished":"2009-02-21T22:57:44Z","dateModified":"2009-02-21T22:57:44Z"},"rendered":"