About residential permit expiration: The way this is written in the 2009 IRC is misleading if you read it superficially. What it actually says is that you have to start work within 180 days of the date that the permit was issued and once work has started, work must not stop for more than 180 days. If you can't show progress within a 180 days period (!), you may apply for an extension documenting why you stopped. My permit was issued early 2010 and I made sure to have an inspection showing progress at least every 180 days. Total time of construction will be 3 years (I have another 180 days to go approx.) and I will own a mortgage free house, which I could not have afforded (even with a mortgage) had I paid a builder to construct it within 180 days. The local building department specifically explained to me that I have to schedule inspections not more than 180 days apart for the permit to stay active. Otherwise it would effectively impossible to build DIY while earning a living with a full time job. And no, the neighbor's visual inconvenience does not trump my property rights (it helps that my property is secluded, though). The city has adopted a more stringent energy code after 2010 but my build is grandfathered into the previous one that was valid when the permit was issued.

We recently re-fied and I was surprised that the bank required the appraiser to come inside the house; we've re-fied before, and I am pretty sure it was just a drive-by. However, our appraiser didn't spend much time in the house, and only went into a couple of rooms. Maybe it was just so he could get an idea of the general quality of our flooring, trim, fixtures, etc - stuff that would affect our home value. Our upstairs bathroom was a little torn up, as my husband was in the middle of replacing a shower valve, but the appraiser didn't go upstairs, so it never came up.

Assessed value may not be the same as market value even in jurisdictions that claim assessments are based on market value. Here's an example of why this is. My neighbor down the street had his assessment appealed when our state switched over to market based values. I attempted to do the same but they didn't receive my appeal in the mail (lesson learned, take it in). So the county accepted the neighbor's appeal which ended up being shockingly low ($37K below our assessment). I finally got around to appealing our assessment for a second time and took it to the assessor's office in person. I used my neighbor's house down the street as my only comparable because our homes are identical, were built at the same time by the same builder and on similar sized lots, and because his assessment is the lowest in the neighborhood for our type of house (I looked them all up). I also submitted our refinance appraisal as evidence, although I really didn't have to. This appraisal was $24K below what our county said our home was worth. I'm sure my appeal put the assessor in a bind. There was no way he could deny the facts about our homes being identical. He was not the assessor in charge when the neighbor's appeal was accepted (elected position). So he just split the difference between our refi appraisal and the neighbor's assessment. The net result was that our home's assessment dropped $30K and our taxes dropped about $300/yr. County assessments are not just about what you home is worth on the market, instead, it's really about what other similar homes in your area have been assessed for. It not right, but homeowners in many places have to force the county assessor to lower their assessment in order to bring parity with their neighbors' assessments. No county assessor wants to be accused of favoritism, which is illegal. Best of Luck with the appeal.

The reason I'm confused is because people refinance ALL the time to lower their rates and these days, it's pretty unusual to see a prepayment penalty. I'm not saying it's wrong, it's entirely dependent on the type of loan you did, but just to be sure, I would double check your note to confirm a prepayment penalty clause is there and what the terms are. Refinancing is not a small deal and requires a specific expertise. If this man is lying and/or not doing his job, I would have a very difficult time trusting him with our financing. I might even be inclined to have a word with his manager and insist that a different loan agent be assigned to us. This is a little off topic, but figured I'd share anyways, but when I arranged for the loan to purchase our house, the loan rep kept trying to push us into an adjustable rate mortgage. I kept telling him no and insisted we wanted a fixed rate, 30 year mortgage only. On the day we went to sign docs we did it at the office of the Title Company. They get their instructions from the lender ie the loan rep and when they handed me the note to sign, it was for a 30 year Adjustable Rate Mortgage! I know from experience, that based on the conversations a borrower has with their loan rep, they trust the documents are accurate and they'll sign whatever is put in front of them without so much as a glance at what they're signing. And with us at least, the copies we were sent when the origination began, were for a fixed mortgage. Yet if it ends up being wrong at signing, the bank will tell you, you should have read what you were signing, and you are stuck. The commission for an Adjustable Rate mortgage was higher than that of a fixed rate loan and that Loan Rep was banking we wouldn't catch it. Well I did and I was really upset and made them redraw the docs. Since then, I've heard several times that the same thing happened to others in our area who had financed with that company which was a very large industry leader at the time. I can't say I feel bad that they are now defunk!