For the second time in as many years, a house flipper bought a home on my street and promptly started ripping up the interior with no city permits. Someone called the city and an inspector came out and stopped the work and made them get permits.
If you are buying a newly remodeled home, you need to check with code enforcement to make sure permits were pulled for all the work, especially plumbing and electrical. Here’s why. If someone is hurrying to meet a self imposed deadline to get a house on the market, shortcuts might be taken and if no inspector checks it, you could be buying a disaster waiting to happen. If electrical work was not done to code, and you didn’t know since it’s hidden inside the walls, you could have a fire a year or two later that seriously damages your new home or burns it to the ground. When your insurance company does their investigation, and they find shoddy wiring that is not up to code, they may deny your claim and you will be left holding the bag.
I checked with the largest realtor in Dallas and was told the agent selling a house is under no obligation to check to see if any major work had permits and was signed off on by an inspector. This is the buyers’ responsibility. I checked with my insurance agent and she told me if they do their investigation on a fire or broken plumbing pipe and find it was not up to code, they would not pay the claim.
So if you are buying a home and it has been remodeled, you need to call code enforcement and ask them to check the address and see if permits were pulled and the work was signed off on by an inspector. If not, and you really want to buy the house, tell them about it and they can go out and may be able to make them get permits, and have final inspections that will protect you down the road.
Another thing people sometimes overlook, is to see if there is a registered sex offender on the street where the house you are looking at is located. This is important if you have kids. You can easily check this by going to Google and entering the words “registered sex offender” and name the street. Make sure you spell it right and have the street extension such as Trail, Street, Drive or Court. You can also use the DPS database at https://records.txdps.state.tx.us/sexoffender. The realtor I talked with said an agent is not obligated to tell you even if they know that a registered sex offender lives right next door or across the street.
Mickey Briggs
