What happens if I buy a BC property with unpermitted work?

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Accepted Answer

It stays with the property: the council can note it on the title and order the owner to bring it up to standard or take it down, whoever built it, so check the council's permit file before you remove subjects. Where no building inspection covered the land when the work was done, no permit was needed from the council, though the BC Building Code applied all the same. Look up the address or PID on PlaceDossier to see the record for that lot. It stays with the lot: A council's remedies for unpermitted work fall on the land and its owner, not on whoever did the work: a note on the title stays until it's cancelled, and an order to fix a structure goes to the owner or occupier of the land it's on (Community Charter ss. 57, 58, 72). So a buyer takes on what the seller left (our reading). A note on the title: Where a building inspector finds that work needing a permit or inspection went ahead without it, or a condition that makes a building unsafe or unlikely to last its normal life, the council can, after hearing the owner and the inspector, file a notice in the land title office. The title then says only that a resolution was made and that the records can be seen at the municipal hall, so ask for them. The note is cancelled once the inspector reports the condition fixed, or by council resolution or a Supreme Court order on the owner's application; a new title from a subdivision or strata plan ends it too (Community Charter ss. 57, 58). Regional districts have the same power (Local Government Act s. 302). An order to fix it or take it down: Where a structure breaks the Provincial building regulations or the building bylaw, or the council considers it unsafe, the council can require the owner to remove or demolish it, alter it, or bring it up to a standard the bylaw sets (Community Charter ss. 72, 73). Regional districts can do the same for buildings and excavations (Local Government Act s. 305). What a permit after the fact would take, and what it costs, is the council's to say: ask before you buy. Where there was no inspection: Some electoral areas have no building inspection, and where a regional district's service began after the work was done, it never needed a permit from the regional district. Work is unpermitted only if a permit was required where and when it was built: ask the regional district when its service began at the lot. The BC Building Code applied to the work all the same, and nobody checked it, so a home inspection matters more. Owner-built homes: An owner builder authorization lets someone build a home for their own use without a licensed builder or home warranty insurance. The owner builder can't sell it while it's being built, or for a set time after, without the registrar's permission, and the owner builder and anyone who buys from them must give a buyer a disclosure notice saying whether the home has warranty insurance, for as long as a warranty would have run (Homeowner Protection Act ss. 20, 20.1, 21). BC Housing's New Homes Registry shows whether one is on file. A suite: A suite built without a permit faces two questions: the building permit, and whether the zone allows a suite there at all. The zone is separate from the permit; see secondary suites for what zones must allow. A septic system: Since May 31, 2005, an authorized person must file a septic system's plans with the health authority before it's built and a letter of certification within 30 days of finishing it, and give the owner the plans and a maintenance plan; an owner may build a Type 1 or Type 2 system on their own land only under an authorized person's supervision. Operating a system with no letter of certification on file is an offence (Sewerage System Regulation ss. 6, 8, 9, 12). Ask the health authority for the filing on the lot. Insurance and the mortgage: We haven't read insurers' or lenders' terms, so ask them: whether work done without a permit changes the home insurance, and whether the lender will finance the purchase with it, or with a suite it doesn't recognise. What it means for a buyer: Get the permit file from the municipality or regional district and walk the house against it. Work it doesn't show is worth raising with your lawyer before subjects come off: who fixes it, at whose cost, or a lower price. A home inspector can say what the work looks like, not whether it was permitted.

What happens if I buy a BC property with unpermitted work?

What the answer means

For one lot