To permit or not to permit (MoCo, kitchen)

[Anonymous]

We are planning a kitchen renovation that will involve replacing a load bearing wall with a beam. This is in Montgomery County, not within any incorporated entity. We are rule follower types, so we never questioned that we would be pulling a permit for the work. However, our structural engineer implied that many people don't (please note, he was not recommending this route), and some coworkers have warned me not to pull a permit because the county will make our lives miserable / block the project. Obviously there are costs involved, both the permit itself and the extra work by our structural engineer to get formal drawings done, and the county could make us do extra work and delay final sign-off after the work is done. But if there were fundamental concerns with our plans, I'd rather have them turn down our application and know *before* we do the work. And when it comes time to sell, I don't want buyers thinking we did shoddy, unsafe work. I know when we were buying we looked up permits for every house with an addition or signs of major renovation.

Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Normally I'm anti permit, but if it's a load bearing wall, you want it.

[Anonymous]

For cosmetic or minor electrical and plumbing, no. We did not pull one for our kitchen but we did for our basement. For a load bearing wall, absolutely. Pull your own. Its easy and a few hundred dollars. We pulled our own. You just take the plans into the permitting office and they will issue you the permit. The inspectors have been very nice and helpful. Lots of contractors prefer you not pull a permit as they do not want to be accountable. They claim it is thousand's to pull it. I didn't think it was that hard or much so I tried it. It was a few hours in the office and that was it.

[Anonymous]

We just sold our house and the buyers wanted to see copies of the permits.

Like you, we redid the kitchen and replaced the load bearing wall with an LVL beam. Since we were already getting permits for the plumbing and electrical work, it wasn't a big deal to add the structural work.

Fast forward 5 years.....we are getting divorced. When we did the work we had no intention of ever moving but life happens. We needed to sell the house much faster than we ever anticipated.

My point is, get the permit. Better safe than sorry and you have no idea what the future might hold.

If we had stayed together and in the house forever live we anticipated and we sold it in 20 years, a buyer probably wouldn't not have noticed that the renovations but having to sell so soon after the renovations, they certainly did.

[Anonymous]

MOCO requires permits for practically all types of electrical work (except for minor repairs). It's a permit heavy jurisdiction. I'd permit a major kitchen reno because if something goes wrong your insurance company would probably refuse to pay for problems arising from unpermitted work (although we have contractors who are very anti-permit because it is a hassle).

[Anonymous]

also, if your neighbors see all the contractor trucks in your driveway and report you for unpermitted work (likelihood in nosy, lawabiding MOCO), you will be in bigger trouble than if you got the permit the right way in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:also, if your neighbors see all the contractor trucks in your driveway and report you for unpermitted work (likelihood in nosy, lawabiding MOCO), you will be in bigger trouble than if you got the permit the right way in the first place.

No, they just stop the work and make you pull a permit.

[Anonymous]

OP here - thanks for confirming that I'm not crazy to want this renovation done completely above board. My coworkers were making it sound like only suckers pull permits - remind me not to buy any of their houses.

[Anonymous]

A lot of people tried to convince me not to pull one for our basement and I am so glad I pulled one. I found it easier to pull it, then look for contractors so they could not try to talk me out of it as it was done.