I have a house that has been renovated and is under contract to be sold next week. Unfortunatley for us we just got hit with a stop work order for unpermitted work performed. (shame on us) They gave us 14 days to comply. The property is completed, already been through buyers home inspedtion etc and just waiting to close. What options do I have? What happens if we just sell the property as planned? Is there any recourse the county may have if we sell and we no longer own the property? We are VERY active here so not sure how to proceed and don’t want to ruin this sale. Suggestions/advice please?
Happened to me once before my brother and I started using checklists. Went to the county office with the stop order and told them in a sorrowful tone that I had screwed up, it was my job to follow up on permits but I thought my brother had gotten this one and I didn’t double check with him. I know the work was done to code but we still didn’t have a permit, what do I have to do to get everything right besides jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge to make my brother happy.
They led me through the process and a week later every thing was OK with the world. The people I dealt with were great, I have run into the bureaucrats that like to show off their authority and ego and make you squirm but they have been the exception so far. One thing in our favor was our general record of pulling permits so this looked like an oversight, but we did try to slip this one by, and a worker that tried to jack his pay way up in the middle of the job turned us in, nice county worker whispered his name over coffee to me.
It depends on the scope of work you did to the property. I’m just going to assume its basic remodel stuff, a roof, etc, but not actually adding square footage. Your best bet would be to just pay for the permits at the county (a couple hundred dollars) and then you won’t have a stop work order any longer. You can still close on the property, but the new owner will just have ‘open permits’ that were never closed. And honestly it won’t even matter, when they go to sell title never checks the status of permits. I would just be extremely apologetic to the permit dept and play really stupid and pay for the permits, thats all they care about anyway. good luck-