Thinking of Buying a Home with Unpermitted Additions?

The City of Santa Clarita will soon begin sending out Code Violation officers to patrol residential areas for possible building code violations. This is part of the City's efforts to resolve the growing number of complaints that "overcrowded" homes are causing troubles in many neighborhoods.

Although this is a good thing overall since nobody wants overcrowded homes blighting their neighborhoods, other innocent homeowners could very well be caught up in these "sweeps". Garage conversions and room additions aren't that rare in the older parts of town, and not all of these were done legally with permits. If you owned the home when these modifications were done, then you're likely aware that these permits should have been obtained from the outset.

However, if you bought a home that already had these illegal (or unpermitted) additions in place, then you too could be subject to the Code Enforcement axe. The rules are pretty clear on this already: If you own a home that has unpermitted additions, then you bear the liability if your home gets cited for code violations, no matter who put them there in the first place. The stance is that it was up to you (with your Realtor's assistance) to determine whether the home was fully permitted when you bought it.

How do you know if a home has illegal add-ons? A good clue to something being "fishy" is if the County records on a home show less square footage than the real estate MLS listing. Sometimes this is a simple error in the original recording of the home, which is fairly common in tract areas where multiple homes are recorded at the same time. In this case, it's usually pretty easy to do a visual check to see if you're really in a Plan 1 or a Plan 2. For other homes where it appears that there was an addition of some sort (or if the square footage doesn't match the County records), it's best to pull the County (or City) building permits to make sure that the additions were done legally. This can be requested during the escrow process, and should be done early on so you'll have time to fully analyze the situation before the close of escrow.

There have been rumors for several months now that the Code Violation personnel had access to the MLS data and were reviewing it for "red flags" for illegal additions and modifications. The comment "buyer to verify actual square footage" may be a good clue that there is something fishy going on, or it can simply be a notification that the County records were simply incorrect from the outset.

When in doubt, pull the permits when buying your next home to make sure that you're not buying into a potential liability for future code violation citations. Or if you've found that perfect home and it does have unpermitted additions in place, at least be aware of your potential liability if this gets discovered by the City's Code Violation personnel. And if you're considering buying a home that appears to have additions or major modifications done to it and your Realtor doesn't suggest that you review all permits, then perhaps it's time to find a new Realtor!