So you're thinking of renovating your property in Madison, Wisconsin? Congratulations. Renovations can be a lot of fun, and sometimes with a combination of savings and redevelopment tax credits you don't even need to take out a construction mortgage to make them happen. However, before you get started there are a lot of things other than the financing of the project that you'll need to worry about. Namely getting a building permit from the city of Madison for the renovations you have in mind. We'll give you more information about this process to help you along.
There are three types of building permits you can get in Madison. The first, known as Group 1, is the one you'll be concerned with. This is the residential permit. You can only get this if you're building or renovating a house for yourself. If you're building a residential property to rent to others, like the equivalent of Toronto townhouses, then you would need a commercial permit. The other two Groups, 2 and 3, concern public buildings and industrial buildings, respectively.
If you were building the property from scratch with the hope of making a home sale, Whitby MacIntosh the building inspector would have to visit and charge you $.30 per square foot. Meanwhile your average renovation project on an existing home only costs $100 per $1,000 invested in the project or a minimum of $25. Examples of projects that would require this type of building permit include building sheds, garages, decks, or additions to the house. In all cases you must take your plans to the building office and get your permit beforehand.
So what happens if you go ahead and do the renovation without getting a permit for it? You could run into big trouble when you're trying to sell your Madison property to buy that place you liked off the Mississauga property listings. The point of getting a permit is to make sure your property is accurately valued for the tax collectors and that none of the new additions will be encroaching on land belonging to your neighbors. Inspections done during the sale process will bring these issues to light and could ruin the sale in addition to costing you money to fix.
However there are some renovation projects you don't need to get a permit for. Generally speaking you're free to change anything inside the house without a permit. Homeowners doing kitchen remodeling in Toronto don't need a permit, nor do you. You can replace flooring, lighting, plumbing fixtures, interior walls, and turn your basement into an apartment without a permit. Though you still need to make sure it meets city building codes or you'll have the same problems mentioned above at sale time
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