I wouldn't hesitate to use the addition.

Absolutely I would be using those rooms.

In the municipalities in which we work, certificates of occupancy are issued for new construction, but not for remodeling projects.

Yeah we don't have them for remodels

Thanks everyone. I was also confused why they are saying that I would get a CO. I thought it might have been because I did an addition of 2 new rooms. But since they already started taxing me on the additional square footage, I feel like I should be able to use them.

Tax is assessed while you add value, whether finished or not, as a percentage of completion.

@Jeffery, thanks for the reply. That might explain why the tax went up since these rooms are finished. Would there be an issue if I were to start using these rooms while the permit is still open? As I mentioned previously, the items I failed for inspection were not related to these rooms.

Certificate of occupancy is the final inspection to make sure everything is safe, all the needed egress meets code compliance, and to make sure the premises are safe to occupy. Since it's your house and you been living there while the addition is being built nobody knows which rooms you occupy or not.

In addition, the items which are not finished and like you said they will be done in a few months, whatever these items are if anyone gets hurt because of that it will all be on you.

@GN, when they do the final inspection they might do a full walkthrough again. In that case if I have already moved furniture/clothing into the rooms, it would be obvious I had been using them. I didn’t want to get fined for using rooms - and that was the reason for my question. However I’ve been paying tax for these spaces, so I guess I could always point to that as my reason for using the spaces.

So let them walk around, this is not a new construction home, you live in the house I'm sure any functional person can understand that you cannot climb over stacked furniture all over the place in order to get to other places which were not affected by construction.

That said, what was so crucial that you need a few months to correct something in order to pass inspection? The reason I'm asking is that usualy when it comes to the final its more or less a minor issue which was missed and it's a breeze to complete.

@GN, that seems reasonable, I do have furniture stacked in other rooms. As far as the failed item, it is fixable in a couple of days or so, but my contractor took another big job and will be booked for the next few months. It’s a matter of getting him back and in the past he wasn’t too responsive for minor things.

@ Stax, I haven’t asked the township yet - but I can see from my tax records that my tax went up and the square footage of the house went up.

What did the County say when you called?

Where I live permits expire so final inspection needs to be done by a certain date. Just check it.