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Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy
You could also make the case that this is due dilligence on your part, to educate yourself on any rules pertaining to your particular project. I know that if I planned to physically alter my house (addition, etc) I would be certain I knew what the required property setbacks were.
Out of curiousity, how detailed is the county appraisal information that your respective areas keep on file? We only have to deal with the basics, such as square footage, basement finish, and garage. So short of adding on, there's no way our officials would know if there were changes made to the house. They even have our unfinished basement listed as finished, so past owners have been paying taxes on it for years. Without being invited, appraisers are not allowed to enter your home in KS.
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I did not personally do a thing to alter the house.
The builder that I bought it from did it AFTER the town had signed off on it.
In NY home transactions are so complicated that you MUST hire an attorney, both sides.
I expect that if I pay an attorney thousands of dollars for their expertise that I should not have to educate myself on the the volumes of law required to do a transaction.
It is so complicated in NY that there are attorneys that do nothing other than home closings. They make a very nice living on that alone.
When I went to cure the problem my current attorney sent me an expeditor who got paid $1500 to go to the town and file for my permits. That's a couple of hours worth of work. I asked the attorney why i could not do that myself. She said you could but it will take you 3 x's as long, cost you 2 x's as much and at the end of the day you will still hire him to get it done.
I verified that with 3 people that I knew in the construction trade, they all said the same thing.
The guy came by and did find additional stuff that I never would have thought of.
The garage, I added a panel and 220 to it. That was not a problem The fact that I added floods to the back of it was a big deal. Required me to get a UL inspection for it. Who would think that adding a light to the exterior of an existing structure with existing electrical was an issue? I did add extra exterior outlets to the house, that was fine. Makes no sense.
My point is he should not be asking for advice from people spread around the country. Obviously in your area things are pretty simple. Not so everywhere else. Where he is may be simple in comparison to NY. But if it's similar he could be in for a world of frustration for not playing by the rules.