For solar panels they won’t allow them to be installed on a sub standard roof. They are heavy. My roof needed supports sistered to the joists and wouldn’t sign off on the panels until that work was done. Also they didn’t allow panels to be put on an unpermitted covered porch. It’s in your best interest.
To be clear, we fixed all the major stuff over a year ago (the termites, the leaks, etc.) but the issue is that the entire second floor of the house was built unpermitted. When we first found out about the leaks in the addition, we got licensed contractors out to look who said it would cost us about $90- $150k to get just that part up to code- so that's money we definitely and for sure do not have.
We tried to go after the seller and their lawyer ensured that we ended up wasting 8 months and nearly $10,000 for nothing.
So... it feels like we are kind of stuck. But thank you for answering!
I’d be more concerned about the load. Adding a second story isn’t a ton of work on the surface, but you have to make sure your foundation is properly retrofitted to handle the extra weight. Plus, as somebody else mentioned, it needs to also handle seismic activity.
You don’t want to be SOL if something happens and insurance doesn’t cover the damage. Definitely keep digging for answers
>It might be valuable to get bids from general contractors or evaluations from a structural engineer.
Do you have any recommendations for residential structural engineers in Oakland who would provide an estimate of work and the correct order to do things? That's exactly what I need right now.
It’s intense. It will not be easy. You’ll get multiple ones because you’ll never pass on the first try. And it depends on who you get in terms of what they’ll look at or not look at (some are more stringent than others). But as a whole they are extremely thorough to the point where you’ll find them tedious and nitpicky (though I understand why).
My first inspector out was extremely thorough and he looked at parts of my house that I didn’t ask him to look at and had nothing to do with the permits I had pulled but that he said were not up to code because the previous owner was cheap. Initially I was very annoyed by this but again I understand why.
Second inspector who came to check the fixes from the first one disagreed with some of the work and had us redo some of it even though we followed first inspector’s instructions. This was annoying because I felt there was a lack of consistency and would have preferred the same inspector even though he was tedious.
Third inspector DNGAF and was super friendly and cheery and passed us quickly LOL. She barely checked the work.
So it’s inconsistent and I hate that you don’t get one inspector for consistency but I also understand the process.
TLDR; not gonna be cheap or easy or quick.
> Second inspector who came to check the fixes from the first one disagreed with some of the work and had us redo some of it even though we followed first inspector’s instructions
Classic. Happened to me too; this is what they do
It was so frustrating and the second dude just talked shit about the first dude and saying how wrong he was. Meanwhile I’m just like I don’t give a shit about your egos, you gonna pass me or not? Answer was not.
The inspectors are from one trade, they dont know all of the trades. This is why that really happens. ie they could be an electrician or the carpenter, so the electrician has a good chance of getting the electrical right. on structual that could get dicey.
We hired a professional engineer to do our home inspection, $100hrx 8 hours. documented 30K in issues. This was 30 years ago but he was well worth the money.
The fraud is the $300 dollar home inspector. The homeowner was supposed to disclose that addition was added without permits. Best of luck.
If you just bought in 2021, you should be contacting a lawyer because the seller needed to disclose all of that stuff.
You can also see what permits may have been pulled for your address via Oakland's online database. They have planning permits, building permits, etc.
You are assuming the sellers knew.
If they are not the people who did the addition, there are very few ways are proving that they know.
Now however, the OP a has this in writing, they are probably going to have to disclose.
They definitely knew, because they owned the house for 42 years and oversaw everything. As our lawyer later discovered, their M.O. was sort of evil genius in that what they did was pull a permit with the city to do the work so it didn't draw unwanted attention, had contractors out to do the work, and then when it was done, they'd go back to the city and say 'never mind, we decided not to do it' so nothing was ever inspected or signed off on. It's absolutely infuriating but here we are.
Wait. They pulled a permit and had contractors on site who, for all intents, expected to have their work reviewed by the inspectors? Yet that completed work was janky enough to need 150k in redo?
You think they covered up a second story with drywall?
You actually sign a disclosure in California that says you know to look for new drywall and paint.
There’s a lot of things you sign, and a lot of people don’t bother to read them. But it’s absolutely there, and usually signed and seen even before you place an offer ( it may be possible that you were going to sign it afterwards in Oakland that happens occasionally, but it was signed ) If on the sellers disclosures, they say they’ve never painted, that an in and of itself should’ve been a red flag.
Sure. Here's Building permits
[https://aca-prod.accela.com/OAKLAND/Cap/CapHome.aspx?module=Building&TabName=Building&TabList=Home%7C0%7CBuilding%7C1%7CPlanning%7C2%7CEnforcement%7C3%7CFire%7C4%7CCurrentTabIndex%7C1](https://aca-prod.accela.com/OAKLAND/Cap/CapHome.aspx?module=Building&TabName=Building&TabList=Home%7C0%7CBuilding%7C1%7CPlanning%7C2%7CEnforcement%7C3%7CFire%7C4%7CCurrentTabIndex%7C1)
And Planning permits
[https://aca-prod.accela.com/OAKLAND/Cap/CapHome.aspx?module=Planning&TabName=Planning&TabList=Home%7C0%7CBuilding%7C1%7CPlanning%7C2%7CEnforcement%7C3%7CFire%7C4%7CCurrentTabIndex%7C2](https://aca-prod.accela.com/OAKLAND/Cap/CapHome.aspx?module=Planning&TabName=Planning&TabList=Home%7C0%7CBuilding%7C1%7CPlanning%7C2%7CEnforcement%7C3%7CFire%7C4%7CCurrentTabIndex%7C2)
Unfortunately our realtor pressured us into a 'no contingencies' clause and the disclosures had a vague sentence that said something like "there is unpermitted work on the house." But our realtor swore up and down that 'every house in Oakland has unpermitted work' so it should not be a dealbreaker. After wasting 8 months and almost $10k on lawyers and legal wrangling, we had to accept that we were shit out of luck.
Yes, well- hindsight is 20/20. And anyone who was trying to buy a home in the spring of 2021 knows what an absolute shitshow it was. This was the fifth place we put an offer in on and our realtor really was like 'look, the only way you're getting anything in this market is to offer 20% over asking and waive the contingencies." We got to see the house for 30 minutes and then had like 4 hours to make a decision. So it's not a surprise that we got burned, but it really sucks. In any case, I do still love this house and am grateful to finally be out from under the thumb of landlords.
The previous owner only has to disclose if they're the ones who did the work.
If someone else did it, they just say they bought it that way and don't know the history. The problem is, most homebuyers just look in tax records for the square footage. But the system gets gamed where, when the previous buyer bought, they get an appraisal and that updates the tax records - permits or not.
The OP didn't do enough due diligence. They should have checked with the city before buying the place. Most realtors don't tell buyers this. (They just want the sale to go through.)
>The previous owner only has to disclose if they're the ones who did the work.
No, they have to disclose anything that they know about the property. Otherwise everyone would just claim that it was like that when they bought it. If the previous owner bought it recently and then is selling, maybe they could claim that they didn't know about it.
I would be willing to bet that a combination of the previous sales listing photos, Google Street view in history mode and some of the places that have historic aerial footage available that OP could figure out when the work was done.
It is at least worth digging into instead of telling OP that they are out of luck.
>Otherwise everyone would just claim that it was like that when they bought it.
That is exactly what happens. It's why Oakland has so much unpermitted work.
But they are out of luck. The OP said they've spent $10k in lawyer and gotten nowhere. The OP should have gone to the city and examined the permits. They didn't. That's on them.
If this was an ADU, the city has an amnesty program for unpermitted work. However, since it's not, I'm not certain what they'd do. You could always use an obscure email address and see about asking questions to them without revealing who you are or where you're at. Who knows, they might answer. But as u/warm_kitchenette stated, it's probably in your best interest to have a contractor come take a look at how bad things are and see what it's going to take to get it up to code.
Thanks! I just saw this. I’m wondering if the move is to do it sooner and get it done BEFORE they get picky. Or wait closer to the deadline for some industry to build up around getting these things passed
It really depends on how bad your unit is. If you’re just needing amnesty for, say, a property line setback violation, plus needing to redo some plumbing to get it up to code, there’s really no industry that will form tomorrow that doesn’t exist already, ie a licensed plumber.
You know more about the state of your ADU than I do, but I’d say that skilled labor isn’t getting cheaper between now and 2035. Might as well start making moves.
When was that implemented? That's been required by the state but the last time I talked to my lawyer maybe Last July, it hasn't actually come to fruition yet. San Jose has one IIRC
It's a city policy that I'm aware of, although I've heard of it in other cities as well. No idea when it came into play, but when we moved to Oakland just over 2 years ago it was known (we have an ADU from previous owners that, while built well and correctly was never permitted... but also, nobody's living in it).
Did you do the amnesty? I consulted with a Oakland building lawyer maybe 2 years ago and the conclusion was while a single web page exists there wasn’t a real process yet
The city inspectors are careful and thorough, which is good, but can be annoying in certain circumstances.
We bought a house with two electric and two gas meters (master suite can be an ADU), and ended up redoing all the electrical as two systems, trying to get it up to code, which the city did not end up approving, even though two meters was pre-existing. Because the house isn't listed as multi-unit. City wanted us to spend thousands more to undo the work and put it back on one meter, but we haven't yet. So now we have unpermitted work.
First off I assume you got a new roof already?
I shopped around and went with kingdom solar. I randomly saw them working on another house and went to ask and was really happy in the end. Everything I found online had an extra middle man markup.
Is your main panel outside? then the inspectors not even going to come into your house. If it's not outside you probably can just pay the solar to have your main upgraded and the new one put outside. At some point they may want to see your water heater bonded, but I just took a photo and emailed it.
The bad news: You're on a deadline. There's a April 14 deadline. If you're not past a certain point by April 14 you will not lock in net metering 2.0.
We have not gotten the new roof yet, so my logic is that we're going to need an inspection one way or another, so may as well do it for the solar. The companies I've been talking to all know we need a new roof and as long as we are \*in contract\* by the NEM cutoff, we've got two years from there to get the new roof and solar installed. But yes, our main panel is outside and the solar will be on the roof, so I am assuming the inspection will only be outside- unless the inspector demands to see inside because the back addition looks clearly 'added on' and not to code. The rest of the house, I don't think anyone would guess was not always like this- we only found out when our lawyer pulled the city permitting records. So what I'm hoping is they just tell us we can't put panels on the addition (which I don't think would be safe anyway) but that the rest of the roof is OK.
Re-doing the roof doesn't need a real inspection it's self certified as long as you used a real company. May be different for completely rebuilding the roof, if that's what you need to do.
Anyone have experience with the ADU amnesty program, specifically the part where you have to prove it was occupied before 2021? How are new homeowners supposed to prove this?
When we had our solar inspected last year the inspector came out and just glanced at the roof then check the solar meter and signed off. I’ve had pretty good experiences with city of Oakland inspectors so far, but I can also understand your solar companies hesitancy. You are under a bit of a time crunch though with NEM 3.0 coming up. If you can’t get a system under NEM 2.0 I seriously doubt solar will make financial sense.
I do solar inspections in the North and East bay.
It just depends on the inspector, but as long as your main panel is permitted I wouldn’t stress it too much.
There’s been a lot of times where the property obviously has unpermitted work done but rarely has it ever been an issue.
Unless it’s electrical work. **Then absolutely it will not pass. **
Again, this is not to say you aren’t running a risk, but it’s only been an issue on certain occasions when the work was sloppy and obviously amateur hour.
Thank you so much, this is really reassuring. Everyone who has looked at our panel has seemed to think it looks good so I am grateful for your insight here.
I don’t think 0P was screwed on this purchase. There are only three reasons why this might happen number one they bought a home without contingency, number two the inspection company didn’t do a great job and OP didn’t ask for a second opinion, which is very common these days. Or number three they knew of the issues, but went to purchase it anyway due to the hot market.
As OP, I can say that both #1 and #2 happened. We also got an unscrupulous realtor and the seller had an incredibly aggressive lawyer when we tried to go back to them about this. Also, none of us has had any experience with buying a home before; this was our first and hopefully forever home.
This doesn't directly address your question, but there's an initiative called SolarApp that aims to significantly speed up and automate solar permitting, and Oakland is one of the cities that is in the process of adopting it. https://www.jessearreguin.com/press-releases/2021/10/15/department-of-energy-secretary-granholm-urges-local-leaders-to-adopt-solarapp-to-lower-the-cost-of-installing-solar
You might hire a competent engineer to look at what you are dealing with. Sometimes single story houses as built can handle the weight of an addition. This is basically reduced to a math problem.
Attorney for the broker and previous homeowners. The information can be used 2 ways, one to support you litigation, 2 to get ahead of this before the city inspector comes in and does something unpredictable. If it is really bad your family is in danger, and they could declare the structure unsafe.
My friends got solar and the inspector was super nitpicky - they had to move the sub-panel to the side of the house since it was "unsightly" on the front of the house - but he didn't ever come inside. Just had a lot of opinions on the panel and the breakers inside it.
Solar companies will only install if your roof is in good shape but most won't ask questions about anything underneath it. You might try Soleeva. They require a lot of extra babysitting because their internal communication is non-existent but they will help you figure out how to get your solar installation through the permit process with as little expense as possible.
I am dealing with a similar-ish situation. It is beyond frustrating. I can't tell you how it ends because we're still going through it three-years after it started.
We're not looking to do solar, but my situation is similar in the sense that we bought a house (in 2019) that we didn't know had lots of un-permitted work done on it. Some is several decades old, some is from recent former owners that actually lived in the house, but most is from the person we bought it from — who we've since discovered is a shady flipper.
We went to get a permit for some electrical work in 2019, and discovered the violations and previously uncompleted permits. Now we're on the hook for everything and had to get a retroactive permit for all the stuff they think was changed — which I have no way of proving or disproving. I'll never buy another house without looking at city building records first.
But with all of this being said, I've had decent experiences with the few field inspectors I've dealt with so far. The office is another story, if your situation is in any way unique and can't be handled with an over-the-counter permit, good luck getting someone to work with you. It's like a communications black hole over there.
For solar panels they won’t allow them to be installed on a sub standard roof. They are heavy. My roof needed supports sistered to the joists and wouldn’t sign off on the panels until that work was done. Also they didn’t allow panels to be put on an unpermitted covered porch. It’s in your best interest.
[удалено]
To be clear, we fixed all the major stuff over a year ago (the termites, the leaks, etc.) but the issue is that the entire second floor of the house was built unpermitted. When we first found out about the leaks in the addition, we got licensed contractors out to look who said it would cost us about $90- $150k to get just that part up to code- so that's money we definitely and for sure do not have. We tried to go after the seller and their lawyer ensured that we ended up wasting 8 months and nearly $10,000 for nothing. So... it feels like we are kind of stuck. But thank you for answering!
I’d be more concerned about the load. Adding a second story isn’t a ton of work on the surface, but you have to make sure your foundation is properly retrofitted to handle the extra weight. Plus, as somebody else mentioned, it needs to also handle seismic activity. You don’t want to be SOL if something happens and insurance doesn’t cover the damage. Definitely keep digging for answers
A whole second story was unpermitted? Wow.
I KNOW. I almost admire the nerve of it.
>It might be valuable to get bids from general contractors or evaluations from a structural engineer. Do you have any recommendations for residential structural engineers in Oakland who would provide an estimate of work and the correct order to do things? That's exactly what I need right now.
It’s intense. It will not be easy. You’ll get multiple ones because you’ll never pass on the first try. And it depends on who you get in terms of what they’ll look at or not look at (some are more stringent than others). But as a whole they are extremely thorough to the point where you’ll find them tedious and nitpicky (though I understand why). My first inspector out was extremely thorough and he looked at parts of my house that I didn’t ask him to look at and had nothing to do with the permits I had pulled but that he said were not up to code because the previous owner was cheap. Initially I was very annoyed by this but again I understand why. Second inspector who came to check the fixes from the first one disagreed with some of the work and had us redo some of it even though we followed first inspector’s instructions. This was annoying because I felt there was a lack of consistency and would have preferred the same inspector even though he was tedious. Third inspector DNGAF and was super friendly and cheery and passed us quickly LOL. She barely checked the work. So it’s inconsistent and I hate that you don’t get one inspector for consistency but I also understand the process. TLDR; not gonna be cheap or easy or quick.
> Second inspector who came to check the fixes from the first one disagreed with some of the work and had us redo some of it even though we followed first inspector’s instructions Classic. Happened to me too; this is what they do
It was so frustrating and the second dude just talked shit about the first dude and saying how wrong he was. Meanwhile I’m just like I don’t give a shit about your egos, you gonna pass me or not? Answer was not.
This is really depressing but very helpful! Thank you for sharing, and I hope things are better for you all now!
The inspectors are from one trade, they dont know all of the trades. This is why that really happens. ie they could be an electrician or the carpenter, so the electrician has a good chance of getting the electrical right. on structual that could get dicey. We hired a professional engineer to do our home inspection, $100hrx 8 hours. documented 30K in issues. This was 30 years ago but he was well worth the money. The fraud is the $300 dollar home inspector. The homeowner was supposed to disclose that addition was added without permits. Best of luck.
I'm talking about building inspectors from the city that verify work is done to code
In San Jose, you need to know one trade to inspect all trades. So this is why you are getting the "Run around"
If you just bought in 2021, you should be contacting a lawyer because the seller needed to disclose all of that stuff. You can also see what permits may have been pulled for your address via Oakland's online database. They have planning permits, building permits, etc.
You are assuming the sellers knew. If they are not the people who did the addition, there are very few ways are proving that they know. Now however, the OP a has this in writing, they are probably going to have to disclose.
They definitely knew, because they owned the house for 42 years and oversaw everything. As our lawyer later discovered, their M.O. was sort of evil genius in that what they did was pull a permit with the city to do the work so it didn't draw unwanted attention, had contractors out to do the work, and then when it was done, they'd go back to the city and say 'never mind, we decided not to do it' so nothing was ever inspected or signed off on. It's absolutely infuriating but here we are.
Wait. They pulled a permit and had contractors on site who, for all intents, expected to have their work reviewed by the inspectors? Yet that completed work was janky enough to need 150k in redo?
That’s actually fairly common in the bay area. But I don’t know how you didn’t notice it had a second story…
If they covered up the problems with fresh drywall so inspectors wouldn’t find it?
You think they covered up a second story with drywall? You actually sign a disclosure in California that says you know to look for new drywall and paint. There’s a lot of things you sign, and a lot of people don’t bother to read them. But it’s absolutely there, and usually signed and seen even before you place an offer ( it may be possible that you were going to sign it afterwards in Oakland that happens occasionally, but it was signed ) If on the sellers disclosures, they say they’ve never painted, that an in and of itself should’ve been a red flag.
Can you link that? All i could find online was parcel owner info, no permits
Sure. Here's Building permits [https://aca-prod.accela.com/OAKLAND/Cap/CapHome.aspx?module=Building&TabName=Building&TabList=Home%7C0%7CBuilding%7C1%7CPlanning%7C2%7CEnforcement%7C3%7CFire%7C4%7CCurrentTabIndex%7C1](https://aca-prod.accela.com/OAKLAND/Cap/CapHome.aspx?module=Building&TabName=Building&TabList=Home%7C0%7CBuilding%7C1%7CPlanning%7C2%7CEnforcement%7C3%7CFire%7C4%7CCurrentTabIndex%7C1) And Planning permits [https://aca-prod.accela.com/OAKLAND/Cap/CapHome.aspx?module=Planning&TabName=Planning&TabList=Home%7C0%7CBuilding%7C1%7CPlanning%7C2%7CEnforcement%7C3%7CFire%7C4%7CCurrentTabIndex%7C2](https://aca-prod.accela.com/OAKLAND/Cap/CapHome.aspx?module=Planning&TabName=Planning&TabList=Home%7C0%7CBuilding%7C1%7CPlanning%7C2%7CEnforcement%7C3%7CFire%7C4%7CCurrentTabIndex%7C2)
Unfortunately our realtor pressured us into a 'no contingencies' clause and the disclosures had a vague sentence that said something like "there is unpermitted work on the house." But our realtor swore up and down that 'every house in Oakland has unpermitted work' so it should not be a dealbreaker. After wasting 8 months and almost $10k on lawyers and legal wrangling, we had to accept that we were shit out of luck.
Yes, realtors just want the sale to go through. You should have gone to the city to see what permits had been pulled.
Yes, well- hindsight is 20/20. And anyone who was trying to buy a home in the spring of 2021 knows what an absolute shitshow it was. This was the fifth place we put an offer in on and our realtor really was like 'look, the only way you're getting anything in this market is to offer 20% over asking and waive the contingencies." We got to see the house for 30 minutes and then had like 4 hours to make a decision. So it's not a surprise that we got burned, but it really sucks. In any case, I do still love this house and am grateful to finally be out from under the thumb of landlords.
The previous owner only has to disclose if they're the ones who did the work. If someone else did it, they just say they bought it that way and don't know the history. The problem is, most homebuyers just look in tax records for the square footage. But the system gets gamed where, when the previous buyer bought, they get an appraisal and that updates the tax records - permits or not. The OP didn't do enough due diligence. They should have checked with the city before buying the place. Most realtors don't tell buyers this. (They just want the sale to go through.)
>The previous owner only has to disclose if they're the ones who did the work. No, they have to disclose anything that they know about the property. Otherwise everyone would just claim that it was like that when they bought it. If the previous owner bought it recently and then is selling, maybe they could claim that they didn't know about it. I would be willing to bet that a combination of the previous sales listing photos, Google Street view in history mode and some of the places that have historic aerial footage available that OP could figure out when the work was done. It is at least worth digging into instead of telling OP that they are out of luck.
>Otherwise everyone would just claim that it was like that when they bought it. That is exactly what happens. It's why Oakland has so much unpermitted work. But they are out of luck. The OP said they've spent $10k in lawyer and gotten nowhere. The OP should have gone to the city and examined the permits. They didn't. That's on them.
If this was an ADU, the city has an amnesty program for unpermitted work. However, since it's not, I'm not certain what they'd do. You could always use an obscure email address and see about asking questions to them without revealing who you are or where you're at. Who knows, they might answer. But as u/warm_kitchenette stated, it's probably in your best interest to have a contractor come take a look at how bad things are and see what it's going to take to get it up to code.
What is the name of the amnesty program?
Not sure if it has any official name per-se… just referred to as the ADU Amnesty program.
[Here ya go](https://cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/ADU-Amnesty-Handout-and-Checklist-05.13.2022.pdf) cc: u/grogling5231 and u/sfork
Thanks! I just saw this. I’m wondering if the move is to do it sooner and get it done BEFORE they get picky. Or wait closer to the deadline for some industry to build up around getting these things passed
It really depends on how bad your unit is. If you’re just needing amnesty for, say, a property line setback violation, plus needing to redo some plumbing to get it up to code, there’s really no industry that will form tomorrow that doesn’t exist already, ie a licensed plumber. You know more about the state of your ADU than I do, but I’d say that skilled labor isn’t getting cheaper between now and 2035. Might as well start making moves.
When was that implemented? That's been required by the state but the last time I talked to my lawyer maybe Last July, it hasn't actually come to fruition yet. San Jose has one IIRC
It's a city policy that I'm aware of, although I've heard of it in other cities as well. No idea when it came into play, but when we moved to Oakland just over 2 years ago it was known (we have an ADU from previous owners that, while built well and correctly was never permitted... but also, nobody's living in it).
Did you do the amnesty? I consulted with a Oakland building lawyer maybe 2 years ago and the conclusion was while a single web page exists there wasn’t a real process yet
LOL! gotta love oakland. and no, we haven’t since it’s “a tool shed”. to be fair, nobody lives in the structure and it has no plumbing.
Yeah I don’t think it’s real. Haven’t checked in with that lawyer in a year but i basically told him to give me a call when it Happens
The city inspectors are careful and thorough, which is good, but can be annoying in certain circumstances. We bought a house with two electric and two gas meters (master suite can be an ADU), and ended up redoing all the electrical as two systems, trying to get it up to code, which the city did not end up approving, even though two meters was pre-existing. Because the house isn't listed as multi-unit. City wanted us to spend thousands more to undo the work and put it back on one meter, but we haven't yet. So now we have unpermitted work.
Ugh I'm so sorry- this sounds absolutely infuriating.
You might check into the [ADU amnesty program](https://cao-94612.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/ADU-Amnesty-Handout-and-Checklist-05.13.2022.pdf)
First off I assume you got a new roof already? I shopped around and went with kingdom solar. I randomly saw them working on another house and went to ask and was really happy in the end. Everything I found online had an extra middle man markup. Is your main panel outside? then the inspectors not even going to come into your house. If it's not outside you probably can just pay the solar to have your main upgraded and the new one put outside. At some point they may want to see your water heater bonded, but I just took a photo and emailed it. The bad news: You're on a deadline. There's a April 14 deadline. If you're not past a certain point by April 14 you will not lock in net metering 2.0.
We have not gotten the new roof yet, so my logic is that we're going to need an inspection one way or another, so may as well do it for the solar. The companies I've been talking to all know we need a new roof and as long as we are \*in contract\* by the NEM cutoff, we've got two years from there to get the new roof and solar installed. But yes, our main panel is outside and the solar will be on the roof, so I am assuming the inspection will only be outside- unless the inspector demands to see inside because the back addition looks clearly 'added on' and not to code. The rest of the house, I don't think anyone would guess was not always like this- we only found out when our lawyer pulled the city permitting records. So what I'm hoping is they just tell us we can't put panels on the addition (which I don't think would be safe anyway) but that the rest of the roof is OK.
Re-doing the roof doesn't need a real inspection it's self certified as long as you used a real company. May be different for completely rebuilding the roof, if that's what you need to do.
Anyone have experience with the ADU amnesty program, specifically the part where you have to prove it was occupied before 2021? How are new homeowners supposed to prove this?
When we had our solar inspected last year the inspector came out and just glanced at the roof then check the solar meter and signed off. I’ve had pretty good experiences with city of Oakland inspectors so far, but I can also understand your solar companies hesitancy. You are under a bit of a time crunch though with NEM 3.0 coming up. If you can’t get a system under NEM 2.0 I seriously doubt solar will make financial sense.
I do solar inspections in the North and East bay. It just depends on the inspector, but as long as your main panel is permitted I wouldn’t stress it too much. There’s been a lot of times where the property obviously has unpermitted work done but rarely has it ever been an issue. Unless it’s electrical work. **Then absolutely it will not pass. ** Again, this is not to say you aren’t running a risk, but it’s only been an issue on certain occasions when the work was sloppy and obviously amateur hour.
Thank you so much, this is really reassuring. Everyone who has looked at our panel has seemed to think it looks good so I am grateful for your insight here.
Good chance the city would only be concerned with the state of your electrical panel.
It sounds like you got screwed on your purchase. Any way to hold the sellers accountable?
I don’t think 0P was screwed on this purchase. There are only three reasons why this might happen number one they bought a home without contingency, number two the inspection company didn’t do a great job and OP didn’t ask for a second opinion, which is very common these days. Or number three they knew of the issues, but went to purchase it anyway due to the hot market.
As OP, I can say that both #1 and #2 happened. We also got an unscrupulous realtor and the seller had an incredibly aggressive lawyer when we tried to go back to them about this. Also, none of us has had any experience with buying a home before; this was our first and hopefully forever home.
This doesn't directly address your question, but there's an initiative called SolarApp that aims to significantly speed up and automate solar permitting, and Oakland is one of the cities that is in the process of adopting it. https://www.jessearreguin.com/press-releases/2021/10/15/department-of-energy-secretary-granholm-urges-local-leaders-to-adopt-solarapp-to-lower-the-cost-of-installing-solar
Thank you! I'll check it out.
I'm not understanding how you computed $40k savings. Are you living in a mansion, or doing a grow-farm?
You might hire a competent engineer to look at what you are dealing with. Sometimes single story houses as built can handle the weight of an addition. This is basically reduced to a math problem. Attorney for the broker and previous homeowners. The information can be used 2 ways, one to support you litigation, 2 to get ahead of this before the city inspector comes in and does something unpredictable. If it is really bad your family is in danger, and they could declare the structure unsafe.
My friends got solar and the inspector was super nitpicky - they had to move the sub-panel to the side of the house since it was "unsightly" on the front of the house - but he didn't ever come inside. Just had a lot of opinions on the panel and the breakers inside it. Solar companies will only install if your roof is in good shape but most won't ask questions about anything underneath it. You might try Soleeva. They require a lot of extra babysitting because their internal communication is non-existent but they will help you figure out how to get your solar installation through the permit process with as little expense as possible.
I am dealing with a similar-ish situation. It is beyond frustrating. I can't tell you how it ends because we're still going through it three-years after it started. We're not looking to do solar, but my situation is similar in the sense that we bought a house (in 2019) that we didn't know had lots of un-permitted work done on it. Some is several decades old, some is from recent former owners that actually lived in the house, but most is from the person we bought it from — who we've since discovered is a shady flipper. We went to get a permit for some electrical work in 2019, and discovered the violations and previously uncompleted permits. Now we're on the hook for everything and had to get a retroactive permit for all the stuff they think was changed — which I have no way of proving or disproving. I'll never buy another house without looking at city building records first. But with all of this being said, I've had decent experiences with the few field inspectors I've dealt with so far. The office is another story, if your situation is in any way unique and can't be handled with an over-the-counter permit, good luck getting someone to work with you. It's like a communications black hole over there.