It takes time to get approvals and permits.
You may have to appear before a board of directors for your homeowners or co-op association.
You may need to spend several hours at the planning and/or building department.
If you have your contractor get the approvals and permits, expect to be hit with a charge for the time spent.
After all, it's work away from the job site for the contractor.
If it's a big job, such as a room addition or a bathroom or kitchen makeover, the contractor will probably figure in the cost of getting approval and just take care of it.
On the other hand, if it's a small job, the contractor may ask for an hourly rate to get the permits or simply suggest that you take care of them.
If you go down and get the permits yourself, you'll save some money.
The building department will ask for the name of your contractor.
If you're doing the work yourself, the building department may balk, saying that it would prefer a contractor do the work.
However, there is no law to prevent you from doing the work yourself.
In this case the building department may require you to sign a statement indicating that you reside at the property and will continue to live there yourself for six months to a year after the work is done.
Such a statement is particularly important if you're doing work involving gas, electricity, or plumbing.
The residency requirement simply makes the assumption that you will do a good and safe job if you're going to inhabit the property.
Do I Need a Survey? A survey is a check of the boundary lines of your property.
It can be essential in the purchase of a property, particularly in rural areas, where property lines are not easy discerned.
It is less necessary in urban areas, where property lines are often well defined.
When renovating, if you are adding a room or even a fireplace that enlarges the outside perimeter of your home, a survey may be beneficial or even a necessity.
For example, if you are adding to the side or the back of your home, you may be encroaching into the setback areas required between houses.
However, you can't tell if you're encroaching unless you know the exact property line.
In a tract home, the property line is often presumed to be the fence that divides neighbors.
But you may have no fence and there may not be an obvious division between properties.
Therefore, to find out the exact boundary, you will need to call in a surveyor.
Be careful of assuming where a property line is.
Just because a fence is between neighbors doesn't mean it's on the property line.
The fence could be a foot or more on one property or the other, as is sometimes the case when the fence follows the lay of the land rather than the property line.
To be safe, always call in a surveyor.
To simply determine a single property line, a surveyor may have a minimum fee, anywhere between $100 and $250.
This is just to pay for the cost of coming out, locating the survey marks in your area, and then indicating them (usually with red flags on short picks driven into the earth or hung on a fence or tree).
It costs much more for a full property survey, which derives all boundaries and, perhaps, even easements.
From the boundary line, you can then accurately measure the setback (which you can find by a visit to your local planning/building department) using a tape measure.
Getting plans and permissions is a normal part of most renovation projects.
If you don't fight it, but just understand that approval is part of the job, the process should go quickly and easily.