No, it is not the goal of the Building Department to screw you and take all your money. At least not ours. Some of our local politicians would like to sponge off us, but that's a story for another time.
The reason I bring this up is because we had an older couple and their son come in and lie to us. The couple sat down, and the son stood at the counter. He had a piece of paper with a hand-drawn floor plan of the house (in pencil - sorry, I don't sign anything done in pencil because it's too easy to change afterward) with the locations and sizes of the windows. There is nothing wrong with hand-drawn plans when all you want to do is replace some of the windows and make a few of them larger than they were before. I looked over the drawing and said, "Sure, no problem."
Well, there was a problem. As Cindy started the permit process, she noticed that the house had been condemned ten years ago! The proverbial can of worms was now wide open and spilling everywhere.
"I'm sorry, this house was condemned. The letter from the Health Department says you have two options - completely fix it up, or tear it down."
"That's what we are trying to do."
"I understand, but it sounds like this place needs much more than just new windows."
"Well, we did put a new roof on it when it was originally tagged."
So we looked it up. Sure enough, there was one permit from ten years ago that was for "general repairs." There was one inspection (re-roofs generally require at least two) which was marked as "failed" with a note from the inspector explaining that the house had been red-tagged before the permit was issued and needed much more than just a roof. They have been lying by ommision about this project for ten years, it seems. Six months later, the permit expired without any further action.
Then I wanted to know what was really going on. Since they hadn't been up front with us, we went into the back room to call the Health inspector and get his side of the story. We told him that the couple was in to get new windows and he said, "No way. Absolutely not. There is much more wrong with that house than they are telling you. I was out there to follow up because of another complaint, and I tagged it again last week." Being fairly new here, I asked Cindy what the normal procedure is for red-tagged houses. She explained that we require a Special Inspection, where our head inspector goes out to the property and creates a list detailing exactly what needs to be done to bring the house up to current safety standards. Then, the owner has to do all of those things in order to occupy it again.
As we are talking about this, Juanita, our resident Spanish-speaker, came over and whispered, "Did you hear what they are saying?" "No." "They're talking in Spanish, saying you are back here trying to think up ways to charge them more money." "Wow, that's the most ridiculous thing I've heard in a while. That hurts."
Returning to the counter, I explained to them the procedure for dealing with the house. They either needed to schedule the special inspection, or get a permit to tear the house down. The reason for the Demolition Permit, as it is called, is to officially take the house off of the tax rolls so they don't have to pay taxes on a non-existent house. At this point, the mother started fuming, threating to call the County Supervisor in her district, and they are trying to fix up the place, and every other house in the area is just as bad as this one and this is going to cost so much. I held my tongue as I thought about how politicians don't frighten me one little bit, especially since they depend on people like me to vote for them, and that they have had TEN YEARS to save up for the repairs or just get rid of the place. When people get like this there is no talking to them, but I went on to explain that I would rather have them pay the $120 or so to have our inspector make sure the place was structurally sound and able to be repaired, than charge them whatever for a repair permit, and have the inspector tell them it can't be fixed after they have paid $1000+ for new windows. The inspector would make a list of all the repairs needed to bring the building up to Code, so everyone involved would know exactly what to expect. But no, we were just trying to rip them off.
Both the father and son got quiet, hung their heads a bit and started looking nervous. I gathered that this was not an unusual occurance. Apparently, they own several businesses in the area, and the house is on one of the many large parcels they own, so it's not like they are broke. If they don't do something about the building, the County can come in and demolish it if it's declared a safety hazard, and send them a bill for much more than it would cost for the owners to do it themselves.
Personally, I would just tear the place down. When houses sit for years like that with missing windows and broken doors, they start rotting from the inside out. Routine maintenance gets neglected, and small things that can be fixed easily if caught suddenly become huge problems. I'm sorry, but a ten-year-old non-inspected tin roof, new windows, and a fresh coat of paint just will not be enough to make this house a home again.
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