Can't we just do the work ourselves?

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Q. If we knew how much trouble it would be to renovate the house we just bought, we would have avoided buying it, avoided permits, gotten people to do separate jobs ourselves, and been done already. Instead, it’s taken months to get drawings made, then months to get a permit, and more headaches to find a contractor who we feel we can work with. The costs were all over the place. One guy gave a number that was nearly twice what the lowest number was, and the lowest number was probably too good to be true. Anyway, we then found out that the county would be taxing us as a new house because of all the work we want to do, because they say we’re over a 50 percent rule. Wouldn’t it have been simpler just to do the work ourselves, with no permits? What problems would we have had if we got caught? Frankly, doing it the right way, which I know you have to tell us, doesn’t seem to make sense.

A. You’re very right, and, of course, very wrong. Yes, I have to tell you that doing things without a permit leaves you open to all kinds of problems and in the long run could end up being very expensive and even dangerous. Although my practice was established to design buildings, I often get desperate calls from real estate agents, attorneys and sellers, asking if I can drop everything to document already built, but not permitted, construction work. When I review the conditions at the building, I frequently find code violations (often because codes change and old work, built to an old code, no longer complies), and have the sad task of informing the owner that changes must be made, with a permit, at added expense. We’ve uncovered a mind-boggling number of violations and dangerous conditions, from structural to electrical and plumbing — you name it — because the extra pair of expert eyes of a building inspector never got to see the work.

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