What fines do cities give out for un-permitted work? Benjamin Sens from BOSS Construction Group explains the consequences for un-permitted work. If you live in Miami-Dade, Broward, or Palm Beach Counties, and need to close an open permit or code violation, please contact us at (954)541-9464 or info@bosscgc.com.
Transcript
Justin Nepola
What are some of the typical fines or punishments that the cities and municipalities will give out for this unpermitted work.
Benjamin Sens
So typically for unpermitted work, they charge double with a normal permitting fee is. And typically, if you if compliance is voluntary, meaning the property owner goes to the city ask them for more time, it generally will not turn into a notice of violation and then a lien. We don’t want it to turn into per day fines and lien the property. Florida realtors, actually in House Bill 447, about two years ago introduced some legislation telling the local municipalities that if it’s an arm’s length transaction, meaning if it’s a buyer inherited open permits or code violations, or they’re over six years old. And they’re not health safety issues, which most of them are, the state has kind of provided the city with the guidance and legislation to cure these things. And to not hold the current property owner responsible who didn’t cause the issue. However, most of our municipalities in South Florida due to the nature of our business community, and our climate, they have said, Hey, you know, you’re selling the house, you can’t close out the permit yourself. And they know they’re selling the house because they look at Trulia, and Zillow, and they look at our MLS syndicated websites for marketing on those photographs to look for unpermitted work and code violation. So while we’ve made a lot of strides, you do not I mean, these open and expired permits. We don’t want to see them get into lien status. As Justin was saying, unpermitted work. Usually the city only has the penalty of double the permitting fee. We know the permitting fees. The problem is, what are the would it what do we need to comply? Meaning what do we need as far as corrective construction? And if there’s any unpermitted work around what you just think, or the city just has documented, didn’t have a permit. So there could be other existing code violations on the property. And I work with property owners every day to try and come up and encapsulate with no surprises, all of the deficiencies that I see. And then we call the city out, and it shouldn’t be done the other way. And like I said, I’m here to help.
