FLORENCE — A 15- to 20-minute meeting with county planning officials might be all you need to ensure you don’t face canceled insurance or loans because of building without a permit, Florence County planning director Bill Hoge said.
“We do these for house renovations all the way up to a new Wal-Mart,” Hoge said.
Hoge said the county faces a growing number of cases where people have built without permits.
“It causes lots and lots of problems for everyone concerned,” he said.
In one case, Hoge said, a man converted his garage to a living area, and the bank threatened to cancel his loan if he couldn’t produce a permit for the renovations. In the end, he tore out all the additions and returned the garage to its original use.
In another case, insurance company representatives came to a construction site and said they’d cancel the building’s insurance within 30 days if the builders didn’t get permits. Hoge said the county found a solution to get permits for the site.
In addition, someone built a commercial building in a residentially zoned area without getting planning officials to review the construction.
The costs of building without a permit are high, Hoge said. The builder will have to pay double for the permit when he or she finally applies for it — and must hire an engineer and an architect for inspections to ensure the work meets the minimum code requirements.
It takes only one to two days to get a permit for residential building, Hoge said.
“Some of them you can even get while you wait,” he said.
Commercial permits can take from 14 to 28 days for approval.
One reason permits are important is that they ensure tax records are correct, Hoge said. If someone builds without a permit, he or she likely has changed the property values but isn’t paying a fair share of taxes, he said.
And those who build without permits get caught when the tax assessor comes around, Hoge said.
Every five years, the assessor’s office reviews the exterior of properties to determine whether any rooms or wings have been added. If so, the assessor’s office will review permits to see if the additions were allowed.
The county also takes aerial photographs so it can measure the dimensions of a house — if it’s taller, for example, that can show a second floor has been added to a building, Hoge said.
Email
Facebook
Google
Twitter
Favorites
More
Advertisement