Would you buy a house with one of these? It would not be easily converted back to a garage. It’s an REO, and I looked in the county records and it is listed with one less bedroom than what it really has, so no permit was ever pulled.
I’m wondering how often the county goes after these kinds of houses and either forces the owner to pay fines, or to convert it back into a garage. How much of a risk am I taking in buying something like this?
Hi,
This is a good question! There are some things that quantify what may happen? These items include:
What year was the original house built in?
When was a standard building code adopted by your state, county and town / city?
How long has it been “Estimated” since this change was made to the property?
I have a rental that was built in 1959, it had an addition added - best we could determine in 1970 or 1971, the area was considered rural at this time and the city did not start a building inspection program until 1975 for residential properties in rural county area!
If by looking at the siding “Mill work” or the trim “Mill work” or the type and style of nail heads, or the type of anchor bolts, or a stamp or tag in an electrical box or looking at the window sill or window or door frame or casing, or looking at the framing can tell some idea of the time of construction!
If a change to the structure was done generally over 20 years ago and has existed for a long period of time it is generally considered “Grandfathered to the Property”.
I can generally look at a change and by experience have a pretty good idea of when a change was done and whether it was done to generally excepted construction standards. In most states a construction standard and inspection program (Residential) was not established until the late 1960’s or early to mid 70’s in most states.
Now if you bought a property that has been “Butchered” or “Cut Up” and let’s say it was done three years ago, you are not specifically responsible, you can’t claim a legal bedroom or sell it as useable square footage! It would still be expected that if the area is enclosede to have smoke detectors, legal sized eggress windows and legal width doors, but I dought that a city or county would come back and expect you to fix it, but it has to be disclosed that you believe a non-permited area exists, it may or may not be to code, and buyer takes and excepts the space as is with no warranties or guarantees.
Good luck,
GR
Are you planning to buy and hold the property? Here’s what I would do. If the property in its modified condition is still in conformance with zoning, I would find out if the modification was done to code. If so, I would go down to the building inspector and tell him you want to buy a house but you want to make it right. Ask him if you pay the permit fees can he make it official.
A few years ago in Johnston, RI a couple decided to convert their garage to a bedroom for one of the mother-in-laws. She was smoking in bed and died in the fire. The couple is facing manslaughter charges.
JP
In my area, the county would force you to remove it, or else get it permitted and inspected retroactively. They wouldn’t just ignore it.
It might be difficult to sell because many of your potential buyers would have to finance and it could cause difficulties with getting a mortgage.
Banks tend to not like garage conversions. They’d prefer that the house have a garage.
Find out how much to turn it back into a garage and deduct that amount from your offer. Explain in the offer why you can’t pay more, because of the expense of removing the illegal conversion. Include a copy of the written estimate to remove the illegal conversion.
The bank will think about it seriously, because now they know that the conversion is illegal and they now have to disclose it.
I’m having a hard time picturing what sort of conversion would be hard to change back. You can leave finished walls and even a small bathroom in a garage. Worst case is that you need to cut in and install a garage door. Chances are very good that they left the header for the garage door when they converted.
Thanks for the information, I will check it out further.