Skipping a permit can be costly.
Refinishing the basement is one of those jobs that people often do without a building permit. Since the work isn’t visible from the street, the thinking goes, why not save the time and cost of the permitting process—and the tax increase that comes with an officially expanded living space? This is a mistake. If you get caught (and the pickup trucks and dumpster are dead giveaways something is going on), the building department can force you to tear apart the project and rebuild it. And even if you don’t, when you go to sell your house, buyers may balk—and penalize you on price—because you don’t have a certificate of occupancy for the project. Plus, you miss out on the chance to have an expert with your best interests in mind double-check your contractor’s work, providing you with a level of technical oversight you won’t otherwise get. The permit paperwork costs only a few hundred dollars. And here’s the clincher: Tax assessors don’t count finished basements as full-fledged living space. So in most cases the project won’t have a large effect on your tax bill.