02-03-2012, 10:40 AM
The advantage for the county to crack down on people building unpermitted structures? The overall taxes on land with a permitted structure HERE are more than taxes on land with an unpermitted home...some areas of the country have a much higher tax rate for land with un-permitted structures (making it a tax advantage to comply - although many here on island do pay much higher 'temp' power rates, some for decades, rather than complete a permit...so not sure that would do anything for compliance here), other areas do not allow sale transfer tags on property with un-permitted structures.
One of the main issues I can see with living here in an un-permitted house is that you are truly at the mercy of your neighbors....the only enforcement I have heard of is when a neighbor turns in another neighbor.... That & not knowing if decades down the line you will need to bring the "best building you could afford" up to present codes....
That really does impact people here, esp people that have lived in the structure all of those years... we know of one older lady that had to upgrade a house that had never been finaled, when her utility pole had to be replaced... HELCO would not re-instate her decades old temp power, she had to fully upgrade & final her house to obtain power... Oh & her power was cut off until the upgrades were finaled (she was not off-grid & the cost to establish a system was very high... thinking it was higher, as she did do the improvements, inc. elec system upgrades... but she was really in a pickle!)
Another draw back would be that the resale market is very limited due to the lack of financing - here you have built the best house you can afford & may have a very limited pool of buyers.... cash buyers have a very large selection to choose from!
One of the main issues I can see with living here in an un-permitted house is that you are truly at the mercy of your neighbors....the only enforcement I have heard of is when a neighbor turns in another neighbor.... That & not knowing if decades down the line you will need to bring the "best building you could afford" up to present codes....
That really does impact people here, esp people that have lived in the structure all of those years... we know of one older lady that had to upgrade a house that had never been finaled, when her utility pole had to be replaced... HELCO would not re-instate her decades old temp power, she had to fully upgrade & final her house to obtain power... Oh & her power was cut off until the upgrades were finaled (she was not off-grid & the cost to establish a system was very high... thinking it was higher, as she did do the improvements, inc. elec system upgrades... but she was really in a pickle!)
Another draw back would be that the resale market is very limited due to the lack of financing - here you have built the best house you can afford & may have a very limited pool of buyers.... cash buyers have a very large selection to choose from!