Work without a permit

Work without a permit is construction performed where required authorization was never obtained — discovered at inspection, complaint, or the next transaction, and cited accordingly. The violation carries penalties, and the remedy is structural: the work must be legalized through retroactive filing and approval, or removed. Until then it encumbers the record, blocking or complicating permits, certificates, financing, and sale.

Analytically it is one of the most consequential patterns in building records, because it marks operations conducted outside the system's visibility: what else was skipped is the natural next question. Legalization costs more than original permitting would have — a premium the record quietly documents whenever the pattern appears.