Building Dept is Dragging Its Feet

[jwuer]

My question involves real estate located in the State of: New York (Westchester Cty)

I am buying a house in Westchester, NY. The building dept has dragged their feet the entire process. Over 2 months to return a title search with mostly bogus violations. All but one of the violations were immediately disputed by an Architect. The last was cleared shortly after. This caused us to have to extend a lease on an apt and pay a fee for month to month rent. Now the new cert of occupancy has been sitting on a desk waiting to be signed for over a week. Our commitment from the bank is about to run out which will cause us to take another lease extension. If so this process could cost me thousands more than it already has as I would have to pay more rent, more public trans fees, and more fees to the bank to re process. Can I threaten any sort of legal action. Everyone has been making daily calls to the building dept including Agents, the sellers, and even the bank!

Please help, I really don't want it to come down to us having to sue them for reimbursement, I just want to be able to get them to pick up the pace as we need to close next week. What's frustrating is we've been dealing with this dept for almost 3 months now and I know the "guy" who's supposed to be signing this stuff doesn't work on Fridays and takes off early very often.

[jk]

Can I threaten any sort of legal action.

sure but realize that legal action could take longer that trying to sweet talk them into signing the thing.

look up: mandamus action

[Mr. Knowitall]

Over 2 months to return a title search with mostly bogus violations.

Why would the building department be performing a title search at all, let alone concerning themselves with clouds on your title. Is this an issue of your wanting construction permits to build across easements, or something to that effect?

[jwuer]

Sorry, not the title search it's self. We had a search company take care of the that, but the municipals that come from the building dept is what took 2 months. No we're not looking to build anything, and there are no easements. Our search company filed an application with the building dept on May 25th, the building dept called our search company in early July to tell us we had to pay $200 to expedite (10-14 days) or it would take another 60 days from that point. Pretty much extorted $200 out of us because our lease was ending on July 31. Then it took them more than 14 days to get it to us. When we got it, there was an open permit and they had stated their was an edition done without a permit and their proof was a black and white illegible aerial photograph from 1965. The permit was closed and an architect disproved the fictitious edition and now we're reaching the end of our commitment period and waiting for "the guy" to sign the C of O.

I wish sweet talking has worked, bt it hasn't and now I feel like the only thing I can do is threaten... It's very frustrating.