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  Historical Background

Phoenix Valley Design/Build, a solely-owned subsidiary of Phoenix Valley Government Affairs has been performing property-value determinations for its clients since 2003. These valuations require on-site property visits, property photos and value determinations based upon construction methods, costs and resale values in the current market-place. 

During the course of these on-site inspections it has become increasingly common to find: 

• Carports converted into garages 

• Carports converted into additional bedrooms and dens 

• Garages converted into additional living spaces 

• Extended roofs to provide covered parking or covered patios 

• New ells to accommodate additional kitchen space, or master bedrooms or baths • Guest houses or mother-in-law cottages 

• Rental apartments 

Based upon 30+ years experience in construction and an in-depth knowledge of building codes, many of these "improvements" do not meet the "acid-test" of permitted structures. 

These unpermitted "improvements", many times, are the bane of the property Seller, the property Buyer, the realtor and the mortgage companies for the following reasons: 

Recent examples of unpermitted SFR improvements

  

Carport to garage. (Photo #1)   Carport to extra room. (Photo #2)   Carport to garage. (Photo #3)   Carport to extra room. (Photo #4)  Note that (Photo #3) also depicts a masonry and stucco wall over the city water main.

• Unpermitted additions may easily incur stiff fines by the municipalities 

• Fines owed by the Seller follow the property as a lien and are owed by the Buyer 

• Realtors can easily be involved in civil suits by the Seller if lack of permits is not disclosed 

 • FHA will not finance homes with unpermitted additions 

• CLUE reports in the insurance industry will "note" the property as un-insurable which discourages mortgage companies in financing the purchase. 

• The costs to the property owner can be immense aside from the fines as the municipality can insist the improvement be permitted (is not inexpensive if done after-the-fact), the costs are tremendous if the improvement be dismantled and removed from the property and moderately expensive if walls, floors and ceiling must be exposed for inspections and then, of course, refinished. 

In summary, the few dollars saved by proceeding with unpermitted building is spent many times over with remediating the structure. 

The City of Phoenix, by PVDB's own database, is the largest violator of its own building codes enforcement. PVDB only began tracking the unpermitted improvements it encountered since June 2009 and has identified and recorded 176 properties. 

While these, in no manner, depict the whole scope of this problem, it certainly demonstrates the perfusion of this illegal building within the Phoenix city-limits. 

Attempts were made the fall of 2009 to alert the City of Phoenix to this problem by discussion held with Tom Simplot, City Councilman for District 4. The documentation presented to Tom Simplot and the following discussions with him went nowhere. 

Now, with the City of Phoenix attempting to cover its budget deficit, this company will seek some real resolution to the problem of unpermitted improvements and push this council to understand the revenue lost by not enforcing its building codes.  

Follow our progress on these pages and offer your suggestions if you will.