Hawaii County Tells Homeowner His 38-Year-Old House Is Actually Illegal
Happy Tax Day (if any tax day can be happy) and welcome to another edition of Rent Free. This week’s stories include:
- Single-stair reform takes a big step forward in Austin, Texas.
- Parking reform advances in Washington.
But first, our lead item on a permitting story from hell that shows just how thin America’s property rights protections can be.
Hawaii Homeowner Goes Through Permit Hell After County Tells Him His Decades-Old Home Is Illegal
When Shahzaad Ausman purchased a small seaside home in Captain Cook, Hawaii, in 2021, he had every reason to believe that it was a perfectly legal dwelling.
The home was first built in 1987 and the original owner had lived in it for years without incident.
The second owner Ausman was purchasing the home from had recently obtained a remodeling permit in 2020 to make repairs and alterations.
As part of his due diligence during the purchasing process, Ausman had confirmed with the county that the remodeling permit was valid for five years. An agent and appraiser working for Ausman also confirmed with the county there weren’t any outstanding permit issues with the home.
“Three people checked with the county that everything was good on the permit and everything was good,” Ausman tells Reason.
With those assurances from the county, Ausman purchased the property and continued with partially completed remodeling work.
But, as local Hawaiian media has reported, the county’s assurances proved to offer Ausman little protection from the bureaucratic nightmare that was soon to follow.
The Nightmare Begins
At the time that Ausman purchased the home, Hawaii County was in the process of setting up a new Electronic Permitting and Information Center (EPIC) to track building permits. Soon after the EPIC system was to go live, all permits that had been open for more than five years would be declared null and void.
Property owners would have a grace period to renew their permits before June 1, 2022. After that, they’d have to start the permitting process from scratch.
On that June deadline, a full 40,000 permits were nixed by the county.
Since the permit Ausman inherited from the previous owner was good through 2025, he didn’t think he had anything to worry about.
In early 2022, after already spending $138,000 on remodeling work on the house, Ausman called the county to get a final inspection on some of the completed work. But no one from the county responded.
Finally, in July 2022, a county official told Ausman over the phone that, contra past assurances, his permit had expired. But not the 2020 permit.
Rather, the county was now telling Ausman that the original 1987 building permit for his home had expired on the June 1, 2022, deadline.
The county asserted that even though a building permit had been issued for the 1987 home, there was no record of a final inspection having been completed. Therefore, it was the county’s position that the permit was never finalized and thus was canceled along with the 40,000 permits that were axed as part of the EPIC overhaul.
According to the county, Ausman’s entire home was illegal. He could not continue his remodeling work or even occupy the home without the risk of daily fines.
In an October 2022 letter to Ausman, the county also said that he would hav
Article from Reason.com
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