Buying a BK townhouse that was renovated without permits
Hello OP (Tucker Lucille), did you end up buying the renovated home without permit?
Guest User | 5 years and 9 months ago
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Guest User | 5 years and 9 months ago
We have been looking for a townhome in Bed Stuy, Crown Heights or Bushwick and literally everything we see has something wrong most of the time it’s no permits on the gut reno, shady DOB status, shady ACRIS status….we have finally found a great place but the reno was done with no permits even Alt 2 – but the ACRIS history seems to be OK and we think we can get an LNO. How bad is it to buy a home that was reno’d without permits?
slopefarm | 5 years and 9 months ago
This is a complicated question. Lots of houses in BK have been renovated in some fashion without a permit. that said, if what you are describing is a recent flipper reno, and you are paying a reno premium and hoping not to renovate the house further yourselves, I would be wary. I’ve seen first hand the corners flippers cut. The incentive is to create the impression of a quality reno while cutting costs and corners on mechanicals and structural things you can’t see. it’s a crapshoot whether you will be fine for the next decade or so or start having problems right away. If you are planning to reno extensively yourselves, then it doesn’t matter so much.
nednedx
in General Discussion 5 years and 9 months ago
Its best to consult a RE attorney before moving forward
slopefarm | 5 years and 9 months ago
Attorneys can’t really help you with this question. neither can inspectors, since they can only report on what is visible (can’t see behind sheetrock, etc. There isn’t really a good way to know whether an unfiled flipper gut reno was done properly. Having been burned once, I don’t trust the situation or the incentives.
eman134 | 5 years and 9 months ago
The trouble with a lack of permits is there is zero paper trail of things done right, much less according to code…if it is a flip from a developer I would tend to be wary. Budget a sizable amount to correct any number of problems that you will encounter after buying the place. I ‘ve had several clients who bought places like that and some of the problems that I have seen (I’m a heating technician) were
-subcode flexible gas lines run instead of hard pipe on risers
-pex run as domestic water lines throughout the building
-screws driven through pex run in walls for heat which doesn’t leak till years after purchase
-heating systems which simply don’t work due to poor design and slapdash use of the cheapest possible hot water baseboard units having zero correlation to actual heating needs of various rooms
-the worst was an extension riddled with termites that contained all the so called new kitchens in the individual units. Owner had to rip the entire thing down and rebuild including plumbing, electric, heat…everything looked okay since it had shiny new cheap fixtures installed when they bought it
As long as the price you are paying is commensurate with the possible problems that you may have to pay for (see the posting by the poor fool who posted about smelling the marijuana from his neighbor and thinks that he can sue an LLC developer and get any money), go for it!
Arkady | 5 years and 9 months ago
What’s the recommendation, though, if it isn’t a flip – just work well done when getting permits wasn’t widely done?
slopefarm | 5 years and 9 months ago
I’ll add to eman’s list — putting up sheetrock to hide leaks, mold problems, or rotten joists; cutting joists to make it easier to route plumbing or electrical conduits; using galvanized steel couplings that can corrode plumbing; unbalanced electrical wiring; etc.
my rec if not a flip, if it is a homeowner who did the work and then lived in the house, is to kick the tires a bit, but not be as wary. Find out the circumstances of the reno,. A homeowner has less incentive to cut corners if they plan to live in the house for a while after the reno.
hkapstein | 5 years and 9 months ago
It’s not about the permits so much, as about the legal use matching up, and the quality of the work done. If it’s a flip, then I would assume anything you can’t see needs to be redone unless demonstrated otherwise, including mechanicals and structural. You ca make the floor level and the walls nice and shiny for a couple years, put in trendy new fixtures, and find a sucker and you just made 500k. In a year the joists will sink, the plumbing won’t work right, the house will be cold or smelly or mouldy, and dob may come calling to write you up. That just the beginning of the list
daveinbedstuy | 5 years and 9 months ago
I bought my home renovated without permits. All the work was actually done to code and never presented any issue either with the financing or any mechanical issues. Most homes in Brooklyn have had unpermiitted work done. I contunied to have work done in the home unpermitted, including a deck in the yard (also constructed to code). There are risks in buying any place that has had work done. If this was a gut renovation by a flipper than I’d say the risks are far higher but if it was just upgrades here or there you are probably OK. Have what electric and plumbing that can be seen looked at by an inspector whi ca tell you where there are any code violations. But, you aren’t going to find a place that hasn’t had work done without permits unless it’s a high end fully permitted job and even those often get around certain issues through self-certification. If you are planning on extensive work in the future that will require permits then you may run into issues but that too depends upon the extent of the work, the permit types and the self-certification process.
hkapstein | 5 years and 9 months ago
I agree with dave except that he says he had work done to code without permits. The code requires paperwork and permits and inspections and certain people to interpret the code and accept liability for those interpretations, so it isn’t really possible to do something to code without filing. You could say it meets the requirements of the current engineering codes. But don’t assume you could file it post hoc and expect it to pass. In fact, assume it will not pass and you will need to redo a lot to get it signed off.
daveinbedstuy | 5 years and 9 months ago
Urbandad….thanks for the nitpicking, errr, I mean clarification. Everyone knows what I meant when I said it was “done to code.”
hkapstein | 5 years and 9 months ago
Yes, for all intents and purposes it means “not done to code”. And that’s fine, I think that’s the best way to do it in a lot of situations, and I’m not above doing that. But if a contractor says, don’t worry I’ll do it to code we just won’t file, or a seller says, we did everything to code but didn’t file, it’s not really true and I’d be extra cautious.
Unpermitted work is fine, but I’m mainly worried about raunchy developer flips, and while they may not all be bad, probably the default is that they are, and I’d make them prove otherwise before I bought. Why would you spend money on something the buyer isn’t going to see or understand? If you did good work, you’d document it well to show buyers as a selling point. It wouldn’t be hard to take a picture before the sheetrock went up.
michaelsaur67 | 5 years and 9 months ago
Often on the forum, I find a tone of general disdain for developers of one- or two family houses in Bed-Stuy or Bushwick. I am neither a developer nor a broker (nor anything in the business), but someone who purchased several houses from developers during the years. While it is true that corners can be cut and problems will occur later, I am pretty sure the same can (and does) happen if renovations are done by homeowners themselves. In fact, developers are more experienced and often have skillful contractors. Keep in mind, you buy an old house, and problems that later occur are not to be taken personal. Houses always bring challenges. Later issues can be a surprise to a developer also. When you buy a condo, you pay for the right of indignation if something goes wrong. If you buy a house, you deal with it. So, in short, be cautious, be diligent, but don’t be generally dismissive. A lot of people bought happily from developers.
resident2 | 5 years and 9 months ago
Historically most Brownstones in Brooklyn if they have been maintained; updated over the years. Have had work done without permits. If everyone got a permit for everything you are supposed to get a permit for the DOB would come to a grinding halt! And everyone’s RE Taxes would be off the wall!
If the house has a legal use as lets say a two and it is being used & sold as two, fine. The seller has to show what its legal use is ; DOF is NOT legal use.
If the building is a new flip & no one has been living in it, testing all the heating, plumbing etc… leave it alone, buy something else!.
If it is historical work that you are talking about, often once it has all been signed off the historic records were not kept/lost/or transposed on the wrong block & lot etc & would not show on the computerized system. The City records are far from 100%
slopefarm | 5 years and 9 months ago
Resident2 – yes, it’s the flipper gut renos I would be most worried about.
stevecym | 5 years and 9 months ago
now let the small time contractor weigh in.
the people doing the work described (no permits/flips) are in this and this work environment for one reason: quick money. they did not come up in this the same way i did, learning a trade or craft to be part of something bigger and produce something that will last so they can one day brag to their grandchildren about what they have made. the people doing this kind of work are the same contractors i complain about on here – they will not take the time or expense to get a license, they do not care about worker protections and progressive era labor reforms and they are the same people who dump trash on the highway. they loathe any sort of government intervention. and guess what, you know the stories about things breaking in these houses six months after the buyer moves in or comments like what master plumber said the other day “the worst renovation stories i have heard are on this site”, this is why. if contractors will not take necessary measures to even protect themselves, they do not care about anything but m oney and they put that before their customer and the relationship with the customer and the customer’s own safety.
this is why i keep complaining about these contractors and the environment that allows them to operate. Urbandad questioned on here the other day the need for all these licenses for every little thing but with contractors like this and what laws they break, where does it stop? and when? when they kill someone?
greenworks | 5 years and 9 months ago
I’m assuming most of these homes that OP is looking at are flipper homes considering location and that he said they were gut renos without permits.
If that’s the case: Your mileage on these flips may vary. I have many friends who bought flips in our flip-heavy neighborhood and over the years each one of them has had problems of varying degrees, many of them I would categorize as “major” problems.
Personally, I would never consider a flip, though I would take into account the degree that the house was renovated into consideration if you’re bent on one. There’s a flipper doing a soft flip near me that all they did was mainly cosmetic stuff — so it may not be a big issue (I was also surprised to see that the electrician on the project was a licensed master).
If the house was a total gut gut then I’d be very very wary. When we were looking for a house several years ago every single flip we saw had warning signs flashing everywhere. How do you tell what they did? Use your detective skills — look at street view and zillow photos (some of these flips are so fas t that the photos are of the house pre renovation) and talk to the neighbors among other things.
Best of luck
stevecym | 5 years and 9 months ago
keep in mind with the old entry doors on these places. and i restore doors. they fill the damage with joint compound, sand it off, paint it and pass it as if it was a sound door. and they do not believe in using primer (they tell me that we don’t need primer ; i could not imagine arguing with a 55 year old man over something like this when i was 20 or 25 yrs old). it happens all the time and three years after you move in the doors will not be closing right and you will be calling someone like me. trust me on this one.
hkapstein | 5 years and 9 months ago
Imagine this. You are a flipper. You posted a sign in bushwick that said “cash for houses”. Some poor dude responded and sold you a house for less than market, but it’s a wreck. Built over 100 years ago, with some of the original mechanicals in place, it also has had many upgrades and repairs done on the cheap, by DIYers or local guys. Things like, installing asbestos products, or cutting away joists to make room for plumbing.
Your goal is to spend the least amount of money renovating a house that you will never live in. You will never meet the buyer, and, thanks to a network of brokers and attorneys, they will not even know who you are. In addition, you will have no liability once the sale is over. Think about how you would handle various types of situations that would come up in reno, and how that might be different fromm what you would do in your own home.