Unpermitted Basement Bathroom Construction

[bc85]

Hi All,

I have recently found myself in a bit of a jam. I purchased my house over 5 years ago and on the second week of owning the sewer backup'd and partially flooded the laundry room and basement bathroom. The damage was not extensive and it was cleaned up within the day thru our insurance. I had no idea what had caused it, the city came out and checked things at their end and said all was good, so we had the line videoed and it turned out there was an obstruction in the line close to the foundation wall. I made my first mistake here in never going back to our realtor or to the seller, we just continued to deal with it ourselves.

The guy who videoed it suggested we have the sewer line replaced to the property line replaced, and being somewhat naive we hired a contractor to do the work. Here we made another mistake, we never asked if the contractor obtained a permit from the city. When the contractor had dug down to the pipe it quickly became apparent that the pipe was fine and problem was under the slab somewhere, the contractor replaced the old pipe anyways.

At this point we were in a rush to fix the problem as we needed to put the bathroom back together for the insurance guys. I pulled up the flooring in the basement and quickly found what the actual problem was, there was an old cast iron backflow water valve in a box that was in terrible shape. The valve was right by the wall making it in the right location to be the problem. Unable to find a contractor myself and a few friend jack hammered the floor and dug up the old back flow valve and replaced it with an ABS one. I asked at the city and they said we did not need a permit to do the work.

With the sewer line replaced the insurance guys could put the bathroom back together. However, once the bathroom had been pulled out it became apparent that drainage was not to code (I had learnt alot by this stage). It was all above grade tying into the stack, there was no venting and it was sloped the wrong way! To cut a ong story short, I moved it all below the slab ensuring it was all vented and properly sloped. My biggest regret here was that I did not get a permit. The contractor we got thru the insurance put the bathroom back together

Flash forward five years, we have had no problems with the drainage since and we are now looking to sell the house as we want to move to another town. Worried about the permit situation I went to the city to see if there were any pemrits on record for house and there were none!! the previous owner had added the bathroom and done it completely illegally (and done a rubbish job), I was kicking myself that I never thought to go ask the city about the permits before.

I guess my question really is what would others do in this situation? We have signed the disclosure stating that we had a flood, and the sewer and bathroom drainage were replaced but without permits. The city will offer a retroactive permit but it would require opening up the floor again. I assume that we would take a hit price wise when selling with this disclosure, so maybe the cost of opening it would be worth it.

Apologies for the long post

Thanks

 

[Stuff]

So the city now knows that you have an unpermitted bathroom? And they aren't making you tear things up?

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Dj2]

If you only knew how many homes are bought and sold with unpermitted things in them. Most are disclosed as "work done to code w/o a permit".

In your situation the city knows about it, and that could be different. I would sell it as is, add that there is no permit but work is to code...then put money aside for the event that the city insists on opening the slab.

 

[Cacher_Chick]

How would anyone ever know if the bathroom was or wasn't there in the first place? Our municipality maintains no record of what systems are in a house that was built years ago, particularly is a basement, which is not generally considered a living space.

 

[Stuff]

In most areas records are kept for tax purposes. Here it is the county that tracks it but the locals use the data. Square footage, number of rooms, fireplaces, bathrooms, heating type, a/c, roof type, public water/sewer, etc.

 

[Cacher_Chick]

In most areas records are kept for tax purposes. Here it is the county that tracks it but the locals use the data. Square footage, number of rooms, fireplaces, bathrooms, heating type, a/c, roof type, public water/sewer, etc.

For tax purposes yes, but in my experience there is a large disconnect between what is published vs. what is actual and there is very little link between home sales and the tax records, other than to ensure the taxes are paid.

Particularly where the basement is entirely below-grade, realtors here are not permitted to include it as living space, even if it is finished. The realtors add it into the house description as "also has a finished basement" or "includes an additional basement bathroom".

In older neighborhoods, many of the houses were built before there was any system of permitting. I have pulled permits for work, but no one has ever updated the records to show exactly what was done.

The experience of the OP might be completely different, but this is what I have witnessed where I am located.