I bought a house, didn't know it has an outstanding permit...now what??

Question

I bought a house in So
CA back in late May and we immediately started to get it remodeled. We
wanted to doing everything 100% according to the regulations, so we had
our license contractor pull a permit for the kitchen. We he did, we
found out that there was a "fine" for the permit. Apparently, the roof
work still had an existing fine. The fine was $201 and the previous
owner (finally) agreed to pay for it.
Fast forward to end of November, when our kitchen
was up for the inspection. We find out that the inspector still needs
to do a final inspection on the roof. At this point, we are thinking
"no problem", the roof was complete in 1995 and this is 12 years
later. What possibly could be wrong after all this time?
The
kitchen passed, but the roof did not. Basically each tile piece was
never secured down with a nail. We were served a noticed and asked to
re-roof or it was NOT pass. It will cost $5k to re-roof the home.
Here are my questions.

1. It was never disclosed to us that the room still had an outstanding permit (permit was submitted by seller's contractor)
2. During the home inspection (during escrow), it was never pointed out to us or flagged
3. I believe it does say in the contract that buyers should check for outstanding permits
4. What can I do at this point?
I have told my agent and she is working to resolve, but wanted to get your opinion as well.

Answer 1

The first thing that I would do is file a complaint with the State of California Contractors licensing board against the contractor that installed the roof in 1995.

The roofing contractor must complete the job at no cost to you.

The Contrator will probably scream bloody murder and will probably try to bluff you into paying him more money to finish the job.

Do not pay that Contractor a penny. That Contractor needs to learn a lesson the hard way.

The roofing contractor can lose his license if he does not complete that job and get the permit finaled at no cost to you. .

I recommend that you hire an attorney who specializes in real estate law to help you with this. Have your attorney send the contractor a letter outlining his responsibilities.

The contractor does not have the right to charge you a penny.

The contractor failed to finish the job for which he was hired. He must now finish the job at no cost to you or lose his license.

I have done this on property that I purchased a number of years ago, where the contractor failed to get the final signatures on the permits.

The contractor wanted to charge me to finish the job.

The California State Contractor's licensing board gave the contractor two options.

1. Either finish the job and get the permit finaled at no cost to me or...

2. The Contractor's license would be revoked.

The Contractor finised the job and got the permits finaled at no cost to me even though he had been hired by the previous owner and not me and gave the previous owner a discount to do the job without the required permits.

Essentially the ruling of The State Contractor's licensing board is that the contractor does not have the option to give the owner a discount if the owner does not want a permit where a permit is legally required.

A roof requires a permit in California.

Any subsequent owner of the property can require that Contractor to come back and finsh or correct the job and get the permits years later at no cost to the present owner or that Contractor will lose his license.

I recommend that you show my response to your agent. She may not be aware that you can get the contractor to come back and finish the job and get the permit finaled at no cost to you. The originsal contractor may not be aware of this either. I recommend that you show my response to your original contractor as well.

Also, show my response to your attorney. He might not even be aware of this. Few people seem to know that you can do this.

I have done it.

Answer 2

Of course you should seek legal counsel in this matter, since it appears that the contractor involved simply did not finish the job. Your major problem may be that, after twelve years, this contractor no longer exists. If the contractor is out of business (and he may well be, if he's failed to finish other projects properly) you are then limited to filing suit against the former owners of the property, since they ALSO bear some responsibility for not having the permits finalized, as owners of the property.

As far as your home inspector goes, you may not have any recourse there if the issue at hand is not one which would normally be expected to be discovered during a routine inspection. Do remember that a home inspector's job is to inspect the CONDITION of the home, and this does not necessarily mean that the inspector is responsible to discover a code violation or an incomplete permit for work.

Good luck on this one.