Expired Permits | Why You Should Check For Expired Permits Before Buying a Home

Expired Permits | Searching for and purchasing a home is an exciting and often fun time in your life. Whether it is a starter home for your new family, bigger home for your growing family or a smaller home when you are looking to downsize buying a home means change and new opportunities. During the excitement of finding a new home, there is one area that is often overlooked and if gone unnoticed can create problems down the road.

When you are looking for a new home you should always check to make sure that the home does not have any expired permits. An expired permit occurs when a previous remodel or construction project was never finalized with the local government. Typically, a home cannot be sold with expired permits but there are still instances where the sale goes through and then the buyer is left to deal with the repercussions. If there is an expired permit on your new home, then you will not be able to obtain a permit for any new projects that you want to tackle. For example, if you buy a home and want to redo the kitchen, you will not be able to pull the proper permits until all expired permits are closed. To close those permits, you will need to first find out what projects were done previously and then they will need to be inspected for quality.

Often expired permits are a just a clerical issue, where the proper paperwork was simply not filed at the conclusion of the work. Even if this is the case you will still need to spend your own money to have it inspected and then the processing fee to have the permit closed out. So, it is always best to find this out before purchasing the home and if it does have expired permits, make sure they are closed before you sign your name.

If you do find yourself in a situation where you are dealing with an expired permit or you just want advice from a company you can trust, you should contact Beryl Engineering & Inspection. They can help you no matter what stage you are in and help you to move in the right direction.