What should you do about open permits or unpermitted work before selling your Long Island home?
Handle them before you list — not at the closing table. Open permits and unpermitted work show up in the buyer's title search, where they trigger price credits that routinely run $30,000 to $50,000 or more, stall closings, and sometimes force you to physically remove finished work. Pull your own municipal records first, identify exactly what you're dealing with, and bring in a permit expediter to clear or legalize the work before a single buyer walks through. Almost all of the pain is avoidable when you get ahead of it.
By Eric Berman | June 11, 2026
You found out there's an open permit on your house. Or worse — work was done years ago and no permit was ever pulled at all.
Don't list yet.
I made the video above because this is one of the quietest deal-killers in Long Island real estate, and almost nobody talks about it until it's too late. By the time a permit problem surfaces — usually in the middle of a deal, with a buyer's attorney on the other side — your leverage is gone and your timeline is on fire. The fix is simple in concept: deal with it before you list. Let's walk through exactly how.
Open permit vs. unpermitted work — they're not the same problem
These two terms get used interchangeably, and they shouldn't be. Knowing which one you have changes everything about how you handle it.
An open permit means your town or village actually issued a building permit. The work got started. But the permit was never closed out — no final inspection, no updated Certificate of Occupancy. On paper, the job is still "in progress," even if it was finished a decade ago. That open permit sits on your property record indefinitely.
Unpermitted work is different. It means a permit was never pulled in the first place. The finished basement, the deck, the dormer, the converted garage — the work exists, but the town has no record that it was ever inspected or approved.
Here's why the distinction matters: an open permit is often a paperwork problem you can close out with a final inspection. Unpermitted work is a legalization problem, and it can mean opening walls, bringing old work up to current code, or in the toughest cases, removing it entirely.
What actually happens when a buyer finds out at closing
This is the scenario I want you to avoid.
You've accepted an offer. You're weeks from closing, mentally moved out, maybe already in contract on your next place. Then the buyer's title search comes back and flags an open permit — or their attorney asks for the Certificate of Occupancy and it doesn't match what's physically in the house.
Now you're negotiating from the worst possible position. The buyer's attorney knows you're under pressure to close. They know you've got movers booked and a clock running. So the credit they ask for is almost never what it would actually cost to fix the problem — it's what they think they can get. It's the same dynamic that plays out in inspection negotiations, except here you have even less room to push back.
That's how a $5,000 issue becomes a $25,000 credit. And that's the good outcome. The bad outcomes are a delayed closing, a buyer who walks, or a lender who won't fund until the CO is clean.
The $50,000 trap
Permit credits scale with the severity of the problem.
A simple open permit on a deck might cost a few thousand dollars to close out. But an unpermitted extension or a finished living space that needs to be brought up to current code? That can run $30,000, $40,000, $50,000 or more — especially when "current code" in 2026 is stricter than whatever standard the work was originally done to.
The trap is that the cost at the closing table is almost always higher than the cost of fixing it in advance. When you control the timeline, you get competitive bids, you choose your contractors, and you solve the problem at its actual cost. When the buyer controls the timeline, you pay a premium for the privilege of closing on schedule.
If you're getting ready to sell in Queens or on Long Island and you're not sure whether your property has open permits or unpermitted work, don't guess — and don't wait for a buyer to find out for you. Eric Berman and his team at Compass can help you pull your records and build a plan before you list. Reach out at eric@ericbermanre.com, call 917-225-8596, or visit theericbermanteam.com.
Why you hire a permit expediter
You can try to navigate your town's building department yourself. Most homeowners shouldn't.
A permit expediter is a licensed architect, engineer, or professional who does exactly one thing: move work through municipal building departments. They know which forms the Town of Hempstead wants, how Oyster Bay handles a legalization differently than Nassau County's villages, and how to close out an old permit without reopening a can of worms.
Their fees are predictable. A straightforward permit closeout typically runs $1,000 to $3,000. A complex legalization — where drawings, engineering, and multiple inspections are involved — can run $5,000 to $15,000.
Put those numbers next to a potential $30,000–$50,000 credit at closing and the math makes itself. Hiring the expediter is almost always the cheaper path.
The case for clearing it before you list
When you resolve permit issues before your home hits the market, you change the entire dynamic of the sale.
You list with a clean Certificate of Occupancy. The title search comes back clean. Buyers and their attorneys have nothing to negotiate around, which means your price holds and your closing stays on schedule. You also widen your buyer pool — plenty of buyers and lenders simply won't touch a home with open permits, so clearing them brings those buyers back to the table.
Most of the time, this is the right move. But I'd be doing you a disservice if I told you it was always simple.
The part nobody in real estate wants to say out loud
Sometimes legalizing work reveals that it can't be legalized as built.
A converted garage that eliminated required parking. A second-story addition that violates current setback or height rules. An apartment in a single-family zone. In those cases, "fixing it" doesn't mean paperwork — it can mean modifying or removing work you paid good money for years ago.
That's the uncomfortable truth most agents skip. It doesn't change the strategy, though. It makes getting ahead of it even more important, because you want to discover a problem like that on your own timeline — when you can weigh your options calmly — not three weeks before a closing with a buyer threatening to walk.
Your 5-step seller playbook
Here's the sequence I walk my Nassau County, Suffolk County, and Northeast Queens sellers through before any home hits the market:
Pull your own municipal records first. Get your property's permit history and Certificate of Occupancy from the town or village. Do this before you list, not after a buyer's title search does it for you.
Identify which problem you actually have. Separate true open permits (paperwork to close out) from unpermitted work (work to legalize). They take different paths.
Bring in a permit expediter for a real estimate. Get a professional read on what it takes to clear each item and what it will cost — so you're working with numbers, not anxiety.
Run the math: clear now vs. credit later. Compare the cost of resolving the issue on your timeline against the credit a buyer's attorney is likely to demand at the table. In most cases, clearing it wins.
Then list — clean. Go to market with resolved permits and an accurate CO, so your price holds — and so your final walkthrough and closing don't get hijacked at the last minute.
The bottom line
Open permits and unpermitted work are not reasons to panic, and they're not reasons to hide. They're reasons to prepare. The sellers who get burned are the ones who find out at the closing table. The sellers who come out ahead are the ones who pulled their records, made a plan, and listed with a clean slate.
If you're thinking about selling a Long Island or Queens home and you suspect there's a permit issue lurking — or you just want to know for sure before you make a move — that's exactly the kind of pre-listing work my team does every day. We'll help you find out what's on your record, what it'll take to clear it, and whether it's smarter to fix it or factor it in. Start at theericbermanteam.com, email eric@ericbermanre.com, or call 917-225-8596.
Prepare before you sell. It's the difference between a credit you can't control and a closing that goes exactly the way you planned.
About Eric Berman Eric Berman is a top 1% REALTOR® with Compass Greater NY, helping buyers and sellers across Queens and Long Island navigate the market with clarity and confidence. Known for his local expertise and solutions-driven approach, he leads a full-service team based in Manhasset and delivers a high-touch, concierge-level experience from start to finish. To connect with Eric, visit theericbermanteam.com,
email eric@ericbermanre.com, or call 917-225-8596.
