<p>I did have a City permit for room addition on last flip. I did have checkpoints on the owner permit, but the one year exclusion from re sell was not one of them. Lots of insurance and liability sign off.</p>
<p>Yes i know and it was a surprise to me as well. But not knowing the law does not mean you are relieved from it. As i said before the enforcement is an issue. </p>
<p>Repiping day today. First pipe out is totally clogged. Cant believe 60 years could do that pipe in good. Also discovered sewer lateral is broken. No wonder first floor smells like sewer.</p>
<p>About 50% of the houses I get we discover broken sewer pipes under the house and I can never figure out how the sellers didn’t realize it.</p>
<p>Bought a gorgeous home once that elderly lady kept maintained really nice, it was just still Grandma decor. Discovered master bathtub drain was broken under house and bathtub had been draining straight under house for years. We could tell by the water effervescent on the lower stem wall. Luckily it wasn’t the toilet!</p>
<p>My stucco guy says that the big players he is working for, including the parent company on that show, never pull permits. I cannot even fathom how they are getting away with that, like the City guys aren’t watching that show??</p>
<p>They got hit with a Stop Work on one of the shows and pretended like they forgot to finalize their paperwork.</p>
<p>Ooh, I have a sewer story.</p>
<p>We bought a first-floor unit in a triple decker - a three-unit building with one apartment per floor. All the inspections went well, and we got a tenant to move in.</p>
<p>Almost immediately after he complained that he would come home and there would be crud in the tub. It seemed like the drain was backing up into the tub if a lot of water was used. Fortunately it never overflowed his tub…</p>
<p>We got our plumber out, who cleaned out all the drain lines, to no avail.</p>
<p>So we brought in a sewage line clean-out firm (a Roto Rooter-type company) and they came out and ran their spinny thingy (technical name) down the line to the street, only to hit a blockage that they couldn’t clear.</p>
<p>So they ran a camera down the pipe, and when they got to the end the pipe just… stopped. No roots, no blockage, just no pipe.</p>
<p>Finally figured out… when the city had redone the sewer main on the street a few months before we bought it, they somehow neglected to hook back up the sewer line for the building! Oops.</p>
<p>So for two months, stuff was just emptying into the ground. The extra person (our tenant) added enough extra waste water that the ground couldn’t absorb it, and it started backing up into our unit.</p>
<p>They were out there the next day digging up the street… I never saw a city department move that fast. We (everyone really) were extraordinarily lucky the first floor didn’t get flooded with raw sewage. The city’s contractor covered all the plumbing bills, I think they were afraid we were going to sue them.</p>
<p>Called my lawyer. The business and professional code is ca only. He has been in real estate law for over 30 years in ca but he had never heard of that marketability issue either. It must be a new addition. </p>
<p>He said the worse case scenario is that buyer may back put of a deal if a non-permitted job is not disclosed. I guess the owner builder code violation may result the same</p>
<p>Who enforces the one year thing? I cannot imagine that 7 months after signing off a permit that a City Building Dept is checking if something changed hands? Also, I think it could be unreasonable in some cases. A legit homeowner does some plumbing and encloses a garage with permit. 6 months later he is relocated for his job. He’s not allowed to sell and move?? He has to lose his job or incur financial hardship because of some fine print that wasn’t even disclosed on the permit he signed? Yikes, good luck on that one.</p>
<p>“Ooh, I have a sewer story.”
Raises hand…after 15 years in our house we had big sewer issues. Company ran video , etc. turns out that the cable co had just slightly nicked the sewer PVC when house was built. Years of silt slowly, slowly built up until it was blocked we had it all dug up. Plumbers "high -tech " location was 10 feet off, we had a huge trench…</p>
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<p>Well as I said, the enforcement may be a problem. However, my lawyer said that portion of the law is enforced by Attorney General, not building department.</p>
<p>In a legal action, sections of business and professional code could be used as complaint. I am being sued by some idiot lawyer and she used one of the sections in the code as part of the complaint. My lawyer had just filed a demurrer against her allegations.</p>
<p>So, lets say you got a building permit as owner builder who used unlicensed “employees” and the buyer found some problems with their work and you failed to remedy the problems. Or some times the problem may not even been construction related. They can file a law suite against you demanding damages or rescind the sale. You may lose the commission paid to the broker and get back a house that has damages, in addition to payback the money you may not have and may force you bankruptcy or forced sale of properties. In an up tick market, that is less of a problem, in a down tick market it could be big losses. And I am sure there is no one to sue for rescind the sale unless it is in a down market.</p>
<p>Well, there’s always a lot of risk. Buyers can get out of contracts for any reason whatsoever. And, the liability of disclosures is huge here in California. Lots of buyers sue Sellers because of non-disclosure of something, even if the Sellers had no idea that something was broken (like a sewer pipe under the house). </p>
<p>I learned from a competitor to create an addendum to disclosures that states basically “I’ve done everything I can to fix this house, but it is 50 years old and nothing is perfect”. Also, included is a statement that Seller does not warranty any work performed or any systems in the house, excepting those warranties that are expressly provided (Heater/AC/Appliances).</p>
<p>Not sure it would stand up in court at all, but it just helps the Buyer understand that nothing is perfect and it’s an old house. If they want perfect, they should be focused on buying new construction from a developer that comes with a developer warranty.</p>
<p>If issues arise in the first 2-3 months after purchase, I have always gone back in to fix something because I want a good reputation. Or, have provided cash payment to their selected tradesperson to correct an issue. (See big mistake about shower above).</p>
<p>Wow, that sewer line disconnect at the street is amazing! It could have taken years to figure that one out.</p>
<p>speaking of rotor rooters, I hired a “rotor rooter guy” to clean the sewer and since my sewer lateral is 100+ feet long they broke the snake that cleans the sewer inside of the sewer line and could not remove it. The guy ran away and had the gull to call me and want me to pay for the snake! I said I was going to sue you for a new sewer line and he shot up.</p>
<p>Long story short, three months later, the snake was still in the sewer line and I got about 12 quotes to fix the problem. The quotes mostly came in at 10-25K, because my sewer line not only goes under my drive way but across the street to my neighbor’s yard before it hooks into the sewer main. City was called and they video the problem and found not only my sewer line had roots but theirs as well, only that stupid snake was sticking out into the main already and they do not want to run their snake in afraid of tangle with mine. So the city came out to take out a large tree to stop the advancement of the root, however, the snake was still there.</p>
<p>By accident, I dialed a plumber in the yellow pages, his quote was $2,000 to resolve the problem and I jumped on the quote. We had to dig 14’ deep into the ground and took out 1/2 of the neighbor’s yard to find my sewer line, the plumber cut open the line and removed the snake, patched it up and put back the yard and that was it.</p>
<p>We did not have to replace the sewer line after all.</p>
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<p>There is a big difference between get out of contracts and rescind a sale. The one year thing is a time bomb for some one to rescind a sale without a reason. So, lets say there is another 2008 crash, house value dropped 50%. Your buyer saw he could not get out of it and found out that you have violate that law, two years later he sues to rescind the sale. If he succeeded, you would have a BIG problem.</p>
<p>I think the statue of limitation is 10 years for a building renovation in ca.</p>
<p>In some towns around here they require the seller to sign a “sewer lateral addendum”, in essence the seller will be on the hook for sewer breakage for x number of years. </p>
<p>One of the town I was aware of is Daly City.</p>
<p>Repiping is going very fast. It will be done in two days because they have already arranged the rough in inspection tomorrow, or the third day. Rough in inspection incl. a 50lbs pressure test. All the fixtures will be installed prior to the inspection.</p>
<p>Dang, I am so jealous!!! It took us a solid week x 1 1/2 guys to get our ABS sewer drains in the house. I fired the one guy (well, I never have the guts to actually fire someone, I just tell them we have no more work for him) because he was just so freaking slow.</p>
<p>Yesterday I had a paint disaster. I always use the same wall color on all my flips. This time I bought 15 gallons of the color. Unfortunately, the appearance of the color on the walls is very dependent on the lighting in the rooms. First wall in one of the tiny bedrooms and it looks like Baby Poop and very dark. I start panicking. Had to load up the 5 gal buckets into the truck (not easy for me), take them back and try to have the guys lighten up the paint. Because the buckets were full they could only drop in 7 oz of white into the paint. That didn’t even make a dent in the color.</p>
<p>The solution involved having to purchase a giant Tupperware 20 gallon storage container, pour in all 15 gallons and add 1 gallon of white and try to mix it in the Tupperware. Even that 1 gallon of white didn’t cut it down very much. After much agonizing I decided to have them paint every room in the house except the small room (the one that had the old bed in it from the before pictures). I now have to find 2 gallons of something else to paint the darkest bedroom and I have quite a lot of the custom mix 15 gallons left over. It’s going to be tricky using up that custom paint on another project!</p>
<p>The difference on the repiping is that i probably paid twice as much as you did, cb. Money talks.</p>
<p>What gets me is that on other threads people talk about being quoted prices like $15K to renovate an EXISTING bathroom. It sounds like the contractors must be building in a large profit when compared to your prices.</p>
<p>Consolation</p>
<p>I think there is a big difference on the material and finishing between the two. I assume the big money bathrooms use high end fixtures and we use all stock fixtures. High end material requires more careful finishing so it costs more in labor. I buy double sink vanity for $1000 you may get it for three, so the difference.</p>
<p>This repiping job is done using PEX, I can see the difference in speed and cost savings, you can do two 90’s without even cut the pipe, providing there is enough room to turn the pipe, threading the pipes are so fast and the each connection can be made in one minute instead of 5. The PEX pipes terminates to a copper bib and the angle valves are compressed to a very short 1/2" copper. So they have one guy makes the angle valve connectors and other guys removes the old pipe or threading the PEX. Altogether, they have 4 guys on the job. It was like 1-2-3, every thing is completed in two days. They did have some hard time to route the water tank tpr’s because it requires to drill a hole on the stucco wall.</p>
<p>Very minimal sheet rock damages was there after all the repiping is completed. No more than 7 sheets are required for the patches. I could even do the patches, but it might take me a week whereas they promised two days.</p>
<p>Shockbite sold in HD is not recommended by the company. Its better to get the top of the line Uproar(spell?), the price difference is negligible in a job like that. But the tool to open the PEX-A is $500 each.</p>
<p>It will cost me $1000 more in labor and material had I require all copper L.</p>