When it comes to permits being pulled for homes, we tend to see most homes don’t have permits pulled/completed. If we had to flip a coin and guess if your next home has all the permits pulled correctly, the changes are usually less than 5%. Why is this? Well, while each city provides general guidelines for what permits they like to see, no one is regulating or enforcing the permitting process. Homeowners can argue this is a good thing as it allows them to have full reign of what they would like to do in and with their homes. For this, most permitting we see is usually only completed when a professional who is completing a very large job. One common permit we tend to see the most on record includes roofing permits. This is because home insurance gets involved and tends to cover most of the cost for this project. In this, we tend to see permits pulled for roof replacements as insurance companies typically require this as a step in the claim process.

Regardless of what permits may or may not have been pulled on your new home, just know that some inspectors may phrase this in a way that could sound more alarming than we actually see it pan out in the long run. This is just a good-to-know for you to have all the information you need in your back pocket!

When it comes to building codes, know that residential homes are required to be ‘up to code’ based on the year the home was built. This means that if a home was built in 1975, it was required to have all the building codes up to the year 1975. All years after that, the home is considered to be ‘grandfathered in’.

This is – again – a good thing, in the eyes of many homeowners, because this gives you the freedom and flexibility (as a homeowner!) to do what you would like to do with your home without the city or county coming in each and every year and requiring you to spend a lot of time and money to update your home in ways that may not make sense for you and your home.

During a home inspection, inspectors may typically consider the building codes of today versus that of the year your home was built. For that, an inspector might mention that your home isn’t ‘up to code’. In most cases, we have found that it is very common and doesn’t result in any major negativity and/or is usually very fixable.

Regardless of what you find during your home inspection, just note that these are two general items that may sound much larger than they might actually be. Once we receive your report, we can review the items that are the greatest hesitations for you to ensure you are best served. As always, let us know what questions you have!