They might require you to bring all up to code, at the least. Depends on where you live & the rules in effect there. Most likely a way more than a $150k project.

Triple that amount and it may be possible.

$150,000 is not going to be enough.

A teardown will be far more cost effective. And legal.

In my market, a 2000 sqft gut rehab would average $300k. More if you are including all new windows, roof and exterior cladding.

I can't imagine your municipality would make you tear it down, but all areas you are touching in your remodel will need to be brought up to current code. I suggest you get a quality home inspection so you can be prepared for the potential scope/cost.

Thank you for your input. I am in the Hi Desert of So. California. I am just trying to make the most of what is available given the circumstances with zero experience.

Will I be bringing any heat on myself from the county or local code enforcement by getting a Home Inspection and significant discrepancies are discovered? Are home inspinspection findings even reported to code enforcement?

Building a house without permits does not necessarily mean it was built without permits to conceal shoddy work. The same plumber, carpenter, and electrician who do work for me with permits have also done work for other people without permits, depending upon the situation and they don't do a shoddier job if they don't have a permit. On the flip side of that there is a lot of pretty bad new construction here that was officially fully permitted and inspected including a row of 6 houses averaging $2M in sales price built 8 years ago which just got the exteriors removed and every roofing material, weatherproofing material, window, cladding material (including dimensional brick) torn off remediated and replaced. And one house had most of the interior gutted and remediated as well. So it's not necessarily the inspection that makes a house well built.

You should probably have a good contractor come and see it and have a discussion about what you can do that may not involve a full gut job. And weird layouts don't necessarily mean non compliant. They may tell you what everybody has already said, that tearing it down and starting over and a budget much larger than you have will be necessary, but maybe they won't

There is a tendency in these forums for people to say your situation requires either doing nothing or doing 100% of everything with nothing in between, and to try and get you to spend every penny you have. Nobody's even seen a picture here, let alone inspected it. Maybe there is a different solution.

I have had a number of independent inspections on properties here and while the findings were reported to me that is as far as it went. And I haven't owned a house in my entire adult life that has currently code-compliant stairs, for example.

It's possible if there is something that makes the house uninhabitable there could be a problem: obviously you don't want to live in a house with electrical that could burn the house down or a range or furnace that could kill you with carbon monoxide or explode or something.

I have zero experience in this matter. Where does one even begin? You mentioned a contractor. Is that the first place to start? Others have mentioned Home Inspectors. The internet is not producing a concise ”step 1” answer besides “come up with a idea/vision.

The house in question is currently lived in and is not in a state of disrepair or disorder. The house has been as is for over 30yrs and withstood a 7.3 earthquack a quarter mile away from the epicenter with only minor cosmetic repairs needed at the time. My goal is for a near future selling of the property.

Typically when a house goes through a transaction, changing hands, there is a home inspection. (Although in competitive housing markets, this inspection gets waived on occasion. However, it's better to do it but say you will not negotiate price because of it rather than skipping it altogether. But to my knowledge it is not an absolute requirement for the transaction.)

Since you inherited the house, this didn't happen. But you could look up "Licensed Home Inspector" and tell him your situation, and get a home inspection done. In my experience they tend to be pretty picky in order to do a full report, but the reality has been they also miss some things.

This way you have an idea of what is wrong with the house given to you by someone who has no financial interest in what you do with the house, like a contractor does. Then you could use this report to start talking with contractors.

No formal home inspection license is required in California. I might suggest an InterNACHI certified inspector.

I’d start by checking the address with the governing Building Dept for history to determine whether any permits were pulled or whether they were even necessary. Some areas offer online records and some remote locations don’t require permits. Hopefully, at least some of the additions were permitted if required. Also, since it’s an inheritance, maybe other family members can help you piece the history together. I agree with Palimpsest that sometimes extremes are cited here without facts, so don’t become unduly discouraged or encouraged. Get the facts for your personal place including survey records, deeds, easements, etc, a private appraisal, talk with a realtor and contractor so you can make an informed decision for your property.

Thank you very much folks. This has been a fruitful conversation. I now have a good idea of how this process can begin and to whom i must speak with about all this madness. Thank you very much!

Some serious food for thought right there.

I agree. If you are selling the property get an appraisal only. In California, you do not need to get an expert to determine preexisting conditions, permits and such for you, it is based upon your knowledge. Let the buyer get the home inspection. If that deal falls through, any defects found on that home inspection will need to be disclosed, since you will now have knowledge of them.

In California you will need to disclose if a death has occurred in the house in the last three years, and any death to your knowledge before that if asked.

It usually doesn't hurt to contact the city permit office (or whatever does permits for the area) and ask questions. Some are really helpful--mostly the bored ones. Some are too busy to be useful.

And I think you'll need more money to gut and redo, even if you skip permits. :)

@palimpsest said, "If that deal falls through, any defects found on that home inspection will need to be disclosed, since you will now have knowledge of them."

This may or may not be true. In most states you don't have to disclose items found by a buyer's inspector, unless you accept the report (sometimes formally). You should see an attorney who is familiar with sales of inherited property to be safe. I suspect they will advise not to accept any report from the buyer. The buyer's inspection is the buyer's business and they can feel free to ask for any repairs they want without showing you the report.

Some states have added statutes to make realtors responsible for for disclosing a negative report to future buyers, some have statutes that make the owner responsible for any known defect from a previous report, but most courts have actually ruled against that requirement.

Seriously consider selling the house as-is, without inspections. Hire a good realtor and price the house accordingly. You may be opening up a huge can of worms if you start down the road of inspections, contractors, etc. Good luck.

You can't ignore any additions/improvements which require a permit. Keeping it, remodeling it, selling it...the minute the property is listed a red flag is raised.

Back in 1964 the town was aware of what the house was...as in property assessment for the tax bills. You try to sell the house as it is now or down the road, all major improvements (plumbing, electric, construction, windows, etc) which should have been permitted were not.

There is no way to beat the system on this one.

Start with the building inspector and do it right. You may or may not have to tear down existing. It is all about code. However, don't be surprised if you get a new tax bill...one that includes taxes (in arrears) for all those improvements, made without pulling permits, which made the house more valuable than it was in 1964.

If there is any money left in the estate, I am assuming the estate would have to pay the fines.

When you purchase a property the tax assessor is notified of the relevant assessment information, but that is hardly a red flag and I have never seen a tax assessor communicate with code enforcement, I am sure it has happened but suspect it is pretty rare.

Property taxes can typically be assessed for the previous three years, but those are assessed to the new owners and therefore it is rarely done. Most jurisdictions have a way to contest assessments for periods before the current owners possessed the property.

None of these things would follow the seller after the sale. Permitting and code requirements as well tax assessments follow the property and not the owner. This is why they are so rarely acted on during property transactions because everyone realizes it is inherently unfair to make the new owner pay for the sins of the previous owner.

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Again, code enforcement is completely regional. Unless you are in the OP's jurisdiction it is impossible to give practical advice. In my previous city, codes were strictly enforced, I moved 5 minutes away and codes weren't enforced at all.

All of this is very much worth concidering and sleeping on for a while. Thanks again for all the input and advice.

Quick question, if i do get a home inspection and code discrepancies are discovered, am I required to fix said discrepancies or can I still sell the house “as is” as long as those discrepancies are disclosed?

A home inspection is unlikely to discover code violations or permitting problems unless they correspond to a safety problem that can be seen via visual inspection.

All home sales are technically "as-is," that is why the buyer has an opportunity for due diligence and you can sell a home without fixing code violations or inspection items.

However, you should generally avoid getting a home you haven't lived in inspected if you are planning on selling it in the immediate future. The problem is the disclosure requirements for things that report only finds some evidence of, e.g. "possible water intrusion in bedroom." So even if someone left the window open and it rained inside the bedroom, you now have to check yes for previous flooding.

You can improve a property without an inspection. You can also have systems inspected independently without a whole house inspection, so roof, HVAC, etc. can still be inspected. I flip houses sometimes and I have never had a whole house inspection.

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IMO, a seller should never get a complete inspection unless they know the house is problem free. There is no benefit to the seller and there is a huge potential to create a disclosure requirement. It is always going to be better to let the buyer put skin in the game and pay for the inspection.

My experience is the town will not put itself in a position to be held accountable for work done that was not permitted. The inspector may let you sign off on it and then you take full responsibility if someone is injured due to shoddy work, or work not up to code. That would put you in a precarious situation, for sure. And, what about the home owner's insurance policy? Do you have one? Again, my experience is before a policy is written the insurance company sends an inspector to assess the condition of the home.

A home insurance inspection can identify potential safety issues, find discounts, and make sure that you take out the correct amount of insurance. Home inspectors will check ways to increase safety, how your home is constructed, its size, any specialty materials, and the utility systems.

Lot's of suspect info in this thread.

My experience is the town will not put itself in a position to be held accountable for work done that was not permitted. The inspector may let you sign off on it and then you take full responsibility if someone is injured due to shoddy work, or work not up to code.

Your experience is an outlier, because code enforcement in the United States is never accountable for work done whether or not it is permitted. Code enforcement officials are not legally responsible for code compliance, homeowners are. Code enforcement officials are not required to catch all problems and no one involved in the construction of a home is indemnified in any way when an item passes inspection. In other words, if the code enforcement official says something is fine and someone is injured, you can't ever sue the official and you can always sue the responsible party... However, that responsible party is not the OP.

The OP didn't own the house and, as far as we know, wasn't contracted to do the remodeling. You can't sue the current owner of a property for the negligence of a previous owner, the OP is completely protected from that type of suit.

what about the home owner's insurance policy? Do you have one? Again, my experience is before a policy is written the insurance company sends an inspector to assess the condition of the home.

Insurance doesn't look at, or care about, codes. I have a dozen rental properties and an insurance inspector has never set foot on the inside of a single one. They look at the roof, the condition of stairs, walks, and rails, etc. I guess if there is something that they are concerned about they could come inside but unless there is something apparent in a visual inspection the insurance inspector isn't going to know about it.

Furthermore, why would the OP spend hundreds of thousands to bring a property up to code in order to save a couple of hundred dollars a year on insurance, especially given that the OP noted they were selling the property.

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People need to stop with the fear mongering... Most people here would sell immediately if it was their money needed to get a house up to code.

ETA: Some expertise is too local to be crowdsourced, your best bet is to consult a local real estate agent who has experience with estate sales and a real estate attorney who can walk you through disclosure requirements.