When you are buying...

When checking out a house, leave your emotions at home.

All improvements to the property should have been done with permits from the local building department. Work done without permit may be substandard and, if discovered later, may need to be ripped out.

• Go down to your local building department and request copies of permits for all work that was done at the property address. Compared these with any additions or replacements done by the seller. If work was not done by permit, you may ask the seller to obtain permits for the work and bring it up to building-code standards before you purchase.

Back to Buyer Tools.