Selling a home in some communities could cost you. Just ask Maryrose Kelly.
When Brown Deer, Wis., resident Kelly put her 27-year-old house on the market, the village’s code compliance provision required that her home be examined by the community’s building inspection department.
The review ended up costing Kelly and her husband about $500 to repair defects found by the inspector.
“We had to put two outlets in our rec room because they were not on one particular wall,” Kelly said.
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The couple also were required to put up drywall in the attached garage and in a closet in the basement around a sump pump; add vent stacks for two basement washtubs; and disconnect a sink. They had to pay double the normal permit fees for finished work they had failed to get approved by the city.
The entire process took about six weeks, Kelly said.
The Kellys decided to have the inspection done before they began showing their house, she said, “because we didn’t want it to become an issue when we tried to sell it.”
The inspection is good for one year.
“If we don’t sell our house in that time, we have to have another inspection,” she said.
Having the inspection done before putting the house on the market is a good idea, said Sue Gleysteen, a sales associate with Shorewest Realtors’ office in Shorewood, Wis.
“You really should have it looked at, because you might have a big surprise and have to do something that you might not plan on doing,” Gleysteen said.
“It’s wise to do it before putting the house on the market or right after, so at least you know what you have going in. The buyer’s private house inspector is probably going to find the same things anyway, so you might as well get it taken care of.”
To some, code compliance programs are a tool to maintain a community’s housing stock. To others, they restrict home sellers and are an attempt by municipalities to sock homeowners with fees.
The Common Council in nearby Cudahy, Wis., recently rescinded its program, which originally required that building, electrical and plumbing systems be up-to-date before the home could be sold, after some residents complained that such rules were overbearing.
Cudahy’s codes date to the 1960s. Over time, subsequent additions to the codes made them too complicated to understand and difficult to satisfy, said Richard Grams, a council member who voted to rescind the program.
Some aspects of the code were justified for safety reasons, Grams said, such as requiring sealed chimney vents. But requiring knobs on bedroom doors or insisting on smoke detectors in areas where state statute lists them as optional was pushing it. There even was a portion that determined the number of feet a shed must be from a house.
Fixing those type of things “can get really costly,” Grams said. “I know people who wouldn’t sell their house mainly because they didn’t want the inspection.”
The program had “been a thorn in our side for several years,” Grams said. “It’s like going through hell” dealing with complaints as well as the actual inspections.
Enforcing the program also was an expense to the city. In fact, the council’s vote to cancel the program was sparked by the building inspection department’s request to hire another full-time inspector, Grams said. Currently, the city employs two full-time inspectors and one part-time inspector.
Proponents of code compliance programs say they are a way for cities to ensure that their housing stock remains in good condition.
“It helps keep up the property values,” said Gleysteen. “It can be a burden for the sellers, but it’s great for the buyers. And sometimes you can work it out with the seller that the buyer will fulfill the compliance requirements.”
Gleysteen learned firsthand the effects of a code compliance when she and her husband bought their home.
“It was not a big deal, and we knew going in that there were some things that had to be taken care of before the deal could be finalized,” she said.
In Cudahy, many homes are more than 100 years old, so the codes helped to ensure these dwellings were safe, said Joe Zsebe, the city’s assistant building inspector. The codes were also enforced for aesthetic reasons, he said.
Many citizens were against the code compliance program because it required inspectors to write up people who had work done on their homes without a permit, Zsebe said.
It was not uncommon, for instance, for inspectors to find an outside deck built without a permit, he said.
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Although the compliance program was eliminated, the codes themselves will remain on the books in Cudahy. The only difference is that they will not be enforced when the home is put up for sale, Zsebe said.
Selling a house is the perfect opportunity for a property to be inspected, Zsebe said, so buyers and sellers can negotiate repair costs. Otherwise, violations are only found when problems are reported to the inspection office.