What Happens When You Renovate Your Home Without a Permit

Renovating your home offers you a chance to increase your property’s value while improving your own quality of life while you’re living in it. But while relatively minor renovations, like replacing flooring or countertops, can generally be done without obtaining a permit from your local municipality, major projects typically require a permit prior to getting started, or at some point along the way.

Why do you need a permit for major renovations?

If you don’t obtain the necessary permits for a home renovation and someone in your local government office becomes aware of that fact, you could get slapped with a serious fine.

How might you get caught? Well, if you decide to sell your home after renovating it, you’ll often need a certificate of occupancy to complete that sale. To obtain it, you’ll need someone from your local government office to inspect your home and confirm that it’s suitable to be lived in. If that someone notices your renovations, but also sees that you never went through the proper channels to go through with them, then you could be on the hook for a hefty fine.

Don’t skip the permit

Nobody likes dealing with extra paperwork or paying extra money. But in some cases, getting a permit could mean giving up less than an hour of your time and writing a check for a few hundred dollars. In the grand scheme of what could be a multi-week, multi-thousand-dollar renovation, that’s really not a big deal. So do yourself a favor: If the work at hand requires a permit, get one.Now, let’s go back to the scenario of wanting to sell your home. Not only might you be fined if you’re caught having made renovations without a permit, but you also might fail to obtain the certificate of occupancy you need to complete that transaction (or at least fail to obtain it in a timely fashion). The result? A lost opportunity to unload your home on a willing buyer.