partially finishing a basement, PERMIT???

do we need one?
We will be finishing half our basement. There is electric and the washer and dryer down there already.

Thanks!

Re: partially finishing a basement, PERMIT???

You're increasing the square footage of your living space, so the town would definitely want a permit, at least to have it on record that you owe the town more taxes.....

Re: partially finishing a basement, PERMIT???

You can do it without one if you don't plan to add a bathroom or anything like that. If you are just adding a family room or something like that than I wouldn't, you don't want your taxes to go up...

Re: partially finishing a basement, PERMIT???

Re: partially finishing a basement, PERMIT???

You can try to get away without it, but it won't be on the CO so if you do later renovations that require a permit they'll catch it on an inspection and you'll have fees, fines and have to bring it up to code if it's not to code.

When you sell the buyers may insist it be added to the CO if they catch it too. When we bought our house it went through without anyone catching that the finished basement was not on the CO and when we added a dormer we had to do additional work on the basement to meet codes and get our CO. We got stuck paying the fees, fines and upgrades that the previous owners should have done if they had done it legally.

After that experience I'm all for making it a requirement that any seller has to have an on-site inspection and a new CO before they can sell - why should the new buyer get stuck with the old seller's responsibilities.

Re: partially finishing a basement, PERMIT???

as mentioned you can do it with out it but you will have to possible tear down areas for inspections to get down when you sell, refinance, etc. My parents finished their basement in the late 70s but haven't remodeled it since then because they know they will have to rip out the bathroom, kitchen and some walls to get a CO when they sell (possibly to us) in the future.

Re: partially finishing a basement, PERMIT???

My SIL and BIL just finished their basement. They were told in order to get a CO in their town, they needed to install a full size window or door exit which was extremely pricey. Hence, they didn't get the CO.