Speaking from experience:
My current house had a third bedroom added and a garage finished into living
space and a new garage built without permits (at least that I can tell). All
done by a DIY'er. It even made it into a national magazine as a model
project. THings that were done wrong: Grade raised above the top of
foundation, Hot and Nuetral reversed in the garage refinish, Skylights
installed wrong, Bay windows installed wrong, THe upgrage to 100 amp service
did not upgrade the wire leading to the house (so it burnt out when I turned
the AC on), Roof flashing installed wrong, septic tank sized for a 2 bedroom
house, high effiency furnace with no flue liner, lack of GFI's, radiant
heating system incorrectly installed. I could go on but I'm too busy
scratching my head on why some things were done.

Don't get me wrong, I love my house and am slowly correcting things but the
home inspection only caught 2 of the issues. Proper permits and inspections
would have found most of them. Flags should go up if the work was done by a
DIY'er and a more thorough inspection performed. My bank did not even care
if there were permits for past work.

"Basha" wrote in message
m...
Hi,

I am in house hunting for the last one month and found a suitable
house recently. I am thinking of buying it. When I went to to get the
survey map from the city governmemnt, I learned that they don't have a
record of basement finished. The previous owner who actually completed
the basement didn't get the permit for it. The basement has 2
bedrooms, one bathroom and a large family room with fire place. Is
there any risk involved in buying this house?

You comments greatly appreciated.

Thanks
Basha