John Marzulli Says:
A REALTOR CONTACTED ME THE OTHER DAY ASKING FOR MY HELP;
THIS IS HOW THE STORY UNFOLDS:
She has a house under contract to sell.
The house has a family room addition which was converted from a porch.
The appraiser is not recognizing the family room as living space because there was no permit pulled.
It seems the owner decided he would do a “do it yourself project” of converting the space to living space without a licensed contractor and without a permit.
He thought he would be saving money……
She asked me how she could get an “after the fact permit”.
I told her the process would involve getting an engineer to do a forensic deconstruction of all the components of the remodel to determine what was up to code and what was not to code.
Then a cost estimate would have to be done to determine how much it would cost to fix all the non-code compliant issues.
I told her it would be cheaper at this point to just convert it back to a screen Porch.
THE MORAL OF THIS STORY
”PLEASE DON’T CUT CORNERS”
BE VERY CAUTIOUS TO THINK YOU CAN DO A PROJECT WITHOUT HIRING A LICENSED CONTRACTOR OR PULLING A PERMIT. IN THE LONG RUN THIS DECISION CAN COST YOU THREE TIMES THE AMOUNT OF MONEY TO FIX THE MISTAKES AS OPPOSED TO DOING IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME.
“We at Emerald Care about you and the Value of your home”
WE STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE ALWAYS