Chefs call it mise en place. You check your station before service, not in the middle of the rush. I spent about 20 years in kitchens, and I still work that way.
For a home sale, the station check I care about most is the permit history. It surprises Clairemont sellers more than anything else, and it usually shows up late.
The question nobody asks until escrow
A family decides to sell. They've loved the house for years. Somewhere along the way a garage became a bedroom, or a patio got closed in, or a previous owner added a back room. Nobody thinks about it anymore. It's just the house.
Then a buyer's agent asks, "Was that permitted?" Or an appraiser measures the place and the square footage doesn't match the records. It's day ten of escrow, and everyone is scrambling.
I'd rather have that conversation with you in October, at your kitchen table.
Why this comes up so often in Clairemont
The neighborhood was built in the 1950s and sold as "the Village Within a City." Seventy years on, most of the homes are still single-story with real yards. People stayed for decades and changed their houses as their families grew.
So I see converted garages and enclosed patios all the time. Some were done with permits. Some were done by someone who sold years ago, and nobody remembers. That's not a flaw in Clairemont. It's what happens when a neighborhood gets lived in. Yours may be fine, and the only way to know is to look.
What a missing permit can affect
The appraisal
An appraiser may count only the space that's on record. If your converted garage isn't, the house can be measured and compared differently than you expect.
Your disclosures
When you sell, you MUST disclose what you know about the home, including work that was done. If you know a conversion wasn't permitted, it goes on the form. I won't help anyone hide it.
The buyer
Even when the numbers hold up, a surprise in the middle of escrow makes buyers nervous. Nervous buyers ask for credits. Some walk away.
What I do first
Before I talk to you about a list price, I look up the permit records for your address. If I don't find any on file, we talk about pulling the permit history from the City of San Diego. To pull any information on a property, we need the owner's permission. Then I walk the house with you. I look at the garage, the back rooms, and anything that looks added.
I'm not checking up on you. I want to know what a buyer's agent will find before they find it.
If something was never permitted
Take a breath. It's common, and you can plan around it.
What it would take to fix depends on the work itself. I'm not an inspector, a contractor or an attorney. A licensed contractor or the City can tell you what bringing it up to standard involves, and an attorney can advise you on disclosure.
What I can do is show you how each route changes your timing and your price. Some owners fix it before listing. Others sell as is and price the house with that in mind. Both can be the right call. Finding out during escrow is the one that hurts.
If the house came to you from family, ask around before you do anything else. Someone often remembers who did the work and when, and that story can save a lot of guessing.
And sometimes I'll tell an owner to leave it alone and sell as is. If that's my view of your house, I'll say so.
If you're moving up
"Where would we even go?" is the first thing most sellers ask me, and it's the right question. If you're outgrowing the house, you're probably selling and buying within a few months of each other. A surprise on the sale side can slow the purchase too, so I'd check permits before settling on timing.
I wrote about how I'd decide whether to sell first or buy first. And here's what I check before a Clairemont home goes on the market.
Want the real number for your home?
If you're curious what your Clairemont home would sell for, I'll give you the honest number, and I'll tell you what the permit history shows. Find your home's value here. No pitch, no pressure.
Or send me a note about what's been changed in your house over the years. I'd like to hear the story. Hablo español.
Richard Torres, REALTOR® | Shore Realty | CA DRE #02006826 | 858-735-3225
Your Home. Your Story. Your San Diego.
Check out this article next
