Getting a House ready for Sale

[street]

I wouldn't do anything but sell it. The buyer may want to pay for an inspection and most lending agencies will require an inspection before a loan is done. If an inspection is required then of course you will need to fix the issues they have found before that person can buy that property.

 

[Sunset]

Many folks finish basements without permits.

Hopefully folks understand that if you finished a basement and then tell the City a few years later, they can order you to remove it.
Sure it sounds extreme, but suppose the inspector decides he needs to see the wiring has nail plates on each 2x4 it goes through and has no connections behind the walls ?
If the inspector is not actually inspecting the work, then he's not really doing his job.

I've bought and sold 5 houses and never has the issue of a permit for some prior, years ago work ever come up.

 

[rk911]

Many folks finish basements without permits.

Hopefully folks understand that if you finished a basement and then tell the City a few years later, they can order you to remove it.
Sure it sounds extreme, but suppose the inspector decides he needs to see the wiring has nail plates on each 2x4 it goes through and has no connections behind the walls ?
If the inspector is not actually inspecting the work, then he's not really doing his job.

I've bought and sold 5 houses and never has the issue of a permit for some prior, years ago work ever come up.

we've done a ton of remodelimg work over the last 15-20 years with permits pulled for the jobs that required them. inspections? in my town they're somewhere between a joke and a nuisance.

one of our largest projects was demolishing our old ramshackle backyard shed that we inherited when we bought the house and replacing it with a properly built storage building. the project involved re-claiming 5' of a 10' utility easememt, building around an electrical pole, laying a foundation, electrical work, a window, gutters, shingled roof and so on.

the city came out to "inspect" the foundation and then a city-contracted private inspector did the final weeks later. combined they spent less than 10-minutes on our property and that included parking and walking back and forth from their cars. the private contracted inspector confided he has to do 50-inspections that day...25 in the morning and 25 that afternoon.

 

[freedomatlast]

Last home we sold the home inspector said there was some evidence of termites....paid $800 for a termite company to come out and remediate...talked to the guy and he said he saw no evidence of any termites, but it was not worth losing the buyer over.

The last house we sold, the inspection report also came back with evidence of termites. I called to have the termite company come out and before they came out, I looked closer at the report. Then I looked around for the damage disclosed on the report. The location of the damage on the report didn't sound like it described anywhere at my house. Further investigation uncovered the fact that the report wasn't even for my property. It was for another customer of the inspection company. Finally got that straightened out and cancelled the visit of the termite company. Can't trust anyone to do their job properly.

 

[SonofCohoes]

Ugh...This is what concerns me. The blueprints of my house in town hall show an unfinished basement. When I sell with a finished basement, I'm just concerned it will raise some red flags and delay or kill the sale.

Nobody’s going to look at old blueprints. Stop worrying, if you keep this up for 2 years you’ll have a breakdown. Fix cosmetic items, clean up the yard declutter and put the for sale sign out. If the microwave is bothering you put a range hood back in.

 

[SonofCohoes]

The last house we sold, the inspection report also came back with evidence of termites. I called to have the termite company come out and before they came out, I looked closer at the report. Then I looked around for the damage disclosed on the report. The location of the damage on the report didn't sound like it described anywhere at my house. Further investigation uncovered the fact that the report wasn't even for my property. It was for another customer of the inspection company. Finally got that straightened out and cancelled the visit of the termite company. Can't trust anyone to do their job properly.

And then there’s this. The buyer just had one done on a condo we sold, 2 pages of the report were on a different property.

 

[TrvlBug]

... ...
Hopefully folks understand that if you finished a basement and then tell the City a few years later, they can order you to remove it.
... ...

Yep, neighbor has to remove a huge shed that the previous owner put up for his side biz of cabinet making. Neighbor is doing some upgrading on home needing permits and county is making him remove shed as it's unpermitted and has some code violations.

 

[Miarocks]

When we sold our home 3 years ago in Orange County, CA, we had un-permitted stairs/loft due to the previous owner not following through on final inspections. (They moved the stairway and created a loft in the high ceilinged space). We could see that they had started the permit process, but had never quite finalized it. Don’t know if it was flakiness, busyness or what. Didn’t really care. We bought it that way and I can’t even recall if the issue came up when we bought. Our realtor made sure to state in our counter-offer that we bought the house that way, and would sell it that way (in other words, nothing would be done about the permit situation). We did decline the first offer we received, mostly due to this issue. Buyer would have had VA financing, and our RE agent advised us that it could easily get hung up, as VA $ is very much ‘by the book’.

The House was under contract in 5 days, with our second (above asking) offer.
We did spruce it up quite a bit first: the entire interior painted, new carpeting on the second level, partial remodel to a bathroom, landscape improvements, new wooden gates. Looking back, we may have skipped the new carpet and given a flooring allowance... the new owners have yanked it out in short order, anyway.

Most important think is to get rid of STUFF!!! Buyers want to see the space and LIGHT and BRIGHT. Empty counters look much bigger. It will save you big $$ on your move, and simplify your life. Wish we’d done it WAY sooner. (See ‘Swedish Death Clean’, it’s a definite thing, and a GIFT to whoever will deal with your house/estate down the line.
I unloaded most of our excess on Facebook Marketplace. No fees and good local exposure. Gave some large pieces away rather than pay for someone to take them. LOTS of trips to charities to donate (we had two local favorites). Pickupplease.org (VVA) will come pick up in many areas; or your other local places often will. We had 30+ years of accumulation (UGH!) so we used small dumpster rentals also several times. We found that easier/less pressure than 1 giant dumpster; plus we could ‘hide’ it on our side yard to prevent the freeloaders from adding their junk overnight

Best of luck to you. I don’t want to go through that again for a LOOOONNNNGG time!