We’ve had many clients come to us with similar issues. They purchase a property only to find out that the second floor addition, deck, or secondary unit wasn’t done to code and was illegally built. The difficult truth is that, if you purchased a property like that, it is now your duty to correct the mistakes of the previous owners, even though they were the ones who made the changes. That’s why you should perform a full inspection before you buy the home in order to make sure everything is done properly.
The cost of these changes will vary depending on whether they were done to code or not. If the changes were made without a building permit, but built up to the building codes, then it’s only a matter of submitting the drawings and applications to your local municipality for approval. If the changes were not done to code, and poorly constructed, that means you will need to get a contractor and bring it up to code.