DIYbanter - View Single Post - HELP! Carport RV Cover Building permit Details please!! Where/How/What are the limits?

wrote:

WE/My roomate got a notice about building without a permit. We haven't been building anything,
So we ignored the notice. Then, BAM! We Must tear down the Carport cover which is made
with steal beams 14ft tall and 40ft long. It came with the house when she bought the house.
It turns out that it is no where near code and was not permitted therefore we have to remove it..

SAY WHAT??? That's Crap. It's already there when the house was sold. If there is a problem shouldn't
the city have dealt with that when previous owners constructed it? Definately it should not have
been allowed to sell. The house was sold under the prentenses of being legal.
What do we do?

Generally speaking, once a house is sold, it is
"grandfathered". The city cannot come a tell you that
something needs to be torn down, unless it is a danger to you
or the public. There are thousands of code violations that
exist in every city. They are not being corrected because of
the grandfather clause which must exist in every jurisdiction
due to the ex post facto clause in the US Constitution. The
ex post facto clause states that it is unconstitutional to
pass a law which makes something done in the past illegal.

The grandfather clause makes it illegal to enforce new
building codes on older buildings built before the code was
passed. In most instances, when a building is sold, the
grandfather clause takes over and the city cannot come back on
a new owner for work done by someone else.

You may have to fight this if you want to keep it, cause just
because they can't do something, doesn't mean that they won't
try. Usually, a letter from an attorney to the code
enforcement division at the city will make the violation go
away. I have had to do this many times when the city wants to
fix something that has been grandfathered.

Now, if you decide to do some work on that carport, the city
can make you bring it up to code if the work is structural in
nature. If you just want to leave it, they don't have a case.

OTOH, if YOU build something, they CAN make you tear it down
if it is not to code and unpermitted.

--
Robert Allison
Rimshot, Inc.
Georgetown, TX