Home of the free?

thats unbelievable. I can see the city's point in enforcing the law equally to everyone. However, I don't see the safety issue...

Here in Pitt county, if you are caught building or have built someting without a permit, the city will issue fines and then you are either required to tear it down or get it taken care of so that it properly meets the codes permit requirements. This, however can lead to destruction or major modification of the property...
 
Sucks bigtime.

The reality is, is comes back to the previous owner, who is liable for the cost of "fixing". Basically, she could sue the mfor the cost of everything, not only the re-conversion, but loss of value from the sale (sold as 3 BR instead of 2) etc I'm no advocate of lawsuits, but clearly they are the ones that screwed up, not her. Of course, good luck finding them after 30 years.
That is IF the law was in effect at the time it was done. If not - the county has no basis. Technically they have to prove that teh law was broken at the time of "conversion".
 
It just rubs me the wrong way.

What ticks me off is the story has the ring of a situation becoming personal vs. professional. There's the law, and then there's the spirit of the law. I think someone could have let grandma slide a few years. The old saying is "you can't fight city hall." That's the idea I don't care for but it's often true.
 
RatLabGuy said:
Sucks bigtime.
The reality is, is comes back to the previous owner, who is liable for the cost of "fixing". Basically, she could sue the mfor the cost of everything, not only the re-conversion, but loss of value from the sale (sold as 3 BR instead of 2) etc I'm no advocate of lawsuits, but clearly they are the ones that screwed up, not her. Of course, good luck finding them after 30 years.
That is IF the law was in effect at the time it was done. If not - the county has no basis. Technically they have to prove that teh law was broken at the time of "conversion".
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Once sold, the problem is now the new owner's responsibility. However, the person that was paid to inspect/ect. the property at the time of the sale would be the one liable (attorney, home inspector, title insurance company, etc. etc.)

Nowadays (don't know about back then or CA...) there are people that are paid to look for things like this. They carry good insurance for when they fawk up.
 
while there is probably a time limit on how long you can wait to go back on previous owners, I know it is possible to do so.
Had an uncle who had a similar issue, bought house in the Chicago area, garage foundation and floor had been poured, wall anchors were not properly located or installed. 3-4 years after purchase of property, uncle decided to finish job and pulled permits, seems the previous owner NEVER pulled permits to even begin the job, let alone have anything inspected. He was able to go back and sue for loss of use, mis representation, and for the them to correct the previous work ( tear out and redo ), AND Cook county went after them as well. took 2 years to sort it out, but in the end, my uncle ended up with a nice 2.5 stall garage and a pool, at limited cost

As for whats happening to this lady, someone needs to look into when this all happened, I'm betting it's grandfathered, if there was even anything on the books at the time the work was done.
 
Blkvoodoo said:
As for whats happening to this lady, someone needs to look into when this all happened, I'm betting it's grandfathered, if there was even anything on the books at the time the work was done.
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That's the real key to getting ahold of the PO; even if he can't be liable (and my suspicion is, yes, he can - he'll of ocurse default back to his contracter, who will be long gone). She coudl hopefully get a date.
Hell it oculd have been done 50 years ago when the house wasn't in te htownship and not subject to the same zone laws.

What she needs is a halfway decent lawyer.
But, alas - that costs money too!
 
All in all, this reaks of a person put in a position of authority, and he got a boner on a easy target, so it looks like he's doing his job. usually the case in something like this.
 
I would contest that there 'was' a permit and put the burden of proof on them. Tracking the previous house sale public records and tax records should be easy enough to date it. Very possibly they can't produce any records going back that far. Now if it doesn't show up on tax records well thats a different story...

I remember NY had some funny grandfathering rules, like back when you could build on the property line, you can't build a new one without following updates setback rules, but you can rebuild your garage on the 4year plan :) one wall per year.
 
Doesn't the deed state number of bedrooms, etc.....if says 3 & no garage, she should be golden.

Either way, it's a bull-chit thing to physically harrass her & her family....even though I strongly believe in everyone following the law w/n reason.

D
 
I personally think the person/people who wrote the law as well as the guy who noticed should have their assholes removed with a spoon! That's just the government sticking it's nose where it doesn't belong. It's just like a HOA and it ought to be illegal. Sorry but shit like this just pisses me off to no end! She's paid the mortgage on the place since she bought it so she should be able to paint it pink and purple polka dot f she wants.
 
rattlecanpaint said:
I personally think the person/people who wrote the law as well as the guy who noticed should have their assholes removed with a spoon! That's just the government sticking it's nose where it doesn't belong. It's just like a HOA and it ought to be illegal. Sorry but shit like this just pisses me off to no end! She's paid the mortgage on the place since she bought it so she should be able to paint it pink and purple polka dot f she wants.
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right on!!
 
lol, all she has to do is open the garage doors. the law is that it needed to remain a garage, right? so the boy sleeps in the garage, big deal.

my only question is, the article said she had 6 grandkids, are the other 5 living with her too? what about the parents of these kids, where do they live. makes me wonder how many people live in that house that one of them has to live in the garage.

im also curious as to the truth of "this is how we bought it" story. if its not up to code now, then the inspector should have cought it before the sale. She would have been notified then. She could possibly of had 30 years to prepare for this re conversion.

Also, she has a reverse mortgage. if i am correct, doesnt that mean she does not own the house anymore anyway?
 
BigRedB2 said:
lol, all she has to do is open the garage doors. the law is that it needed to remain a garage, right? so the boy sleeps in the garage, big deal.
my only question is, the article said she had 6 grandkids, are the other 5 living with her too? what about the parents of these kids, where do they live. makes me wonder how many people live in that house that one of them has to live in the garage.
im also curious as to the truth of "this is how we bought it" story. if its not up to code now, then the inspector should have cought it before the sale. She would have been notified then. She could possibly of had 30 years to prepare for this re conversion.
Also, she has a reverse mortgage. if i am correct, doesnt that mean she does not own the house anymore anyway?
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Woah, hold on there buddy. You're really jumping to a lot of conclusions.
She's an old woman. Very possible that one of the grandkids lives there not only (a) to get a deal on rent, but also (b) to help the family take care of grandma. That happens a lot, you know. Just b/c there's 1 grandson living there dosn't mean it's a family full of deadbeats. Dude is 29, he could be well into a decent career.
Why shouldn't he sleep tehre? Like she said, it's not agarage, it's a bedroom (now), so maybe not such a bad place to hang out. Actually, it has cabinets, a siink and a bathroom - sounds like a complete suite to me. (Actually, sounds more like a kitchen than anything).

Also, unless I missed it, it's dosn't actually say that any of the construction is against code (unsafe), just that the code requires permits/inspection for the conversion work, and that wasn't done. E.g. it isn't necessarily unsafe or shoddily built.
It's not an inspector's job to pull permit history, just to check the safety of existing structures. It just had to meet existing safety code in 1978. So maybe even if they knew it used to be a garage - so what? it's not illegal or against code to live in a garage and call it a bedroom. it's just illegal to change it and not get approval.
The thing that's really stupid is that they are determined to make her change it back. That serves nobody. Seems it's more appropriate to levy a hefty fine for not following teh rules, and be done with it.

BTW reverse mortgage or not is irrelevant. So a bank owns the house - big deal, that's no different from anybody w/ a normal mortgage!
 
rattlecanpaint said:
I personally think the person/people who wrote the law as well as the guy who noticed should have their assholes removed with a spoon! That's just the government sticking it's nose where it doesn't belong. It's just like a HOA and it ought to be illegal. Sorry but shit like this just pisses me off to no end! She's paid the mortgage on the place since she bought it so she should be able to paint it pink and purple polka dot f she wants.
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wait till your neighbor does this and see how you really feel. I mean really, who in their right mind would want to live right beside a house with bright pink polka dots????


thats the reason for HOAs and such.
 
When I was a kid, a friend of mine, his mom painted thier house fluoresent GREEN, with white trim, it actually looked pretty nice.

Neighbors were furious, but wasn't a thing they could do about it, no HOA, no city ordinance against it.

Why did she do it? I was the 4th time in 5 years she had painted the house, every time she painted it a color that was different from most on the block, she did a real nice job, it always looked good, but soon after she was done, there would be 3-4 other houses copying the color scheme. She figured she'd get daring and do the bright green, see if anyone else had the stones to follow.

Thier house was bright green for over 20 years, nobody ever copied it.

It REALLY look cool at Chistmas, they would light the place up like crazy, she was always about getting attention.....
 
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