By Alexandru Goncear, Owner and CEO, ElectON Enterprise. Washington electrical contractor license ELECTEL765MN.
It usually comes up a few months after closing. You want to finish the basement or add an EV charger, someone opens the panel, and the question gets asked out loud: was any of this permitted? Sometimes the home inspector flagged it and you closed anyway. Sometimes nobody noticed until now.
Plenty of older Seattle houses have been remodeled more than once by owners who each did the wiring their own way. A basement finished over a few weekends, a garage subpanel, a hot tub circuit, a kitchen redone right before a sale. Some of that work is perfectly good and simply never got inspected. Some of it is dangerous. The paperwork cannot tell you which, and until someone looks, neither can you.
This is how to find out what you have, and how to get it legalized through SDCI without opening every wall in the house.
First, find out what was permitted
Seattle’s permit records are public and searchable by address, and SDCI’s research page walks through the options. The Permit and Site History Research Tool pulls together records from the Seattle Services Portal and the city’s older systems. The portal itself shows permit activity from 2005 on, including inspection results. For anything older, SDCI’s microfilm library holds permits indexed by address.
What you are looking for is simple. If the listing or the seller said the panel was replaced, the house was rewired or the basement was finished, there should be an electrical permit for it, and that permit should show a passed final inspection. One of three things will turn up:
- A permit with a final inspection. That work was signed off. It does not guarantee the work is still in good shape, but it was inspected.
- A permit that was issued and never finaled. Someone started the process and never finished it. This happens more than people expect, and it is usually the easiest kind to clean up.
- No permit at all. That is mostly what this post is about.
The records are not perfect. Older files can be incomplete, and small jobs that never needed a permit will not show up at all. An electrician who opens the panel and walks the basement will usually tell you more in an hour than the records will.
Then find out whether it is dangerous
Before you think about paperwork, think about safety. A permit can wait a few weeks. A loose connection in a junction box above the basement ceiling cannot.
Some signs move this from a paperwork problem to a call-today problem: a burning smell, outlets or switch plates that feel warm, lights that dim or flicker when something else turns on, a breaker that trips and will not reset, or scorch marks around a plug. If you have any of those, read what to do in the ten minutes before an electrician arrives and get someone out. That is what our emergency electrical service is for.
Short of that, these are the things I look for first when I find unpermitted work in a Seattle house:
- Splices with no junction box, usually above a basement ceiling or in the attic.
- New cable spliced into old knob and tube, often buried under insulation. We wrote about why a partial rewire can be worse than none for exactly this reason.
- Two wires under one breaker screw, or a breaker bigger than the wire it feeds.
- Three-prong outlets on circuits with no ground and no GFCI protection. The legal way to handle those is on our outlet grounding page.
- A garage or shop subpanel fed with undersized wire, or with neutrals and grounds tied together on the same bar when they should be separate.
- Cable stapled along a garage wall or across open basement joists, where it can get hit.
- Recessed lights sitting in attic insulation that are not rated for contact with it.
Your options: legalize it, redo it or remove it
Once someone has looked, there are three ways forward. Which one is right depends on the work, not on what the seller called it.
Legalize it as is. If the work was done well, an electrical contractor can apply to SDCI for a permit that covers the existing work, make whatever corrections are needed and call for inspection. This makes the most sense for work you can see or reach easily: a subpanel in an unfinished garage, an outdoor circuit, a panel replacement someone did without a permit.
Redo it under a new permit. Sometimes it costs less to replace questionable work than to prove it is good. If a basement was wired with the wrong cable or the splices are a mess, new circuits under a fresh permit give you work you know is right, inspected before anything covers it. When the problem runs through most of the house, that becomes a whole-house rewire done in stages so you can keep living there.
Remove it. A circuit nobody uses, an outdoor run that was never meant to be permanent, a feed to an appliance that is long gone. Disconnect it at the panel and take it out properly, and the problem goes with it. Leaving abandoned wiring connected and live inside a wall is not one of the options.
Most real jobs end up as a mix of all three. In a basement finished decades ago, we might legalize the subpanel, redo the circuits behind the one wall that is coming down for a remodel anyway, and remove a couple of runs nobody can account for.
What legalizing looks like with SDCI
Legalizing electrical work in Seattle runs through the same system as any other electrical permit. The permit comes from SDCI, not L&I, and the inspector checks the work against the 2023 Seattle Electrical Code. That means the current code, not the one in force when the work was done, and it surprises people. A permit today means today’s rules: GFCI and AFCI protection where the current code wants it, proper grounding, every circuit labeled.
The hard part is concealed work. SDCI normally inspects wiring before insulation and drywall go up, and an inspector cannot sign off on what they cannot see. How much has to be opened is the inspector’s call. Sometimes pulling devices and cover plates, opening the panel and looking from the basement and attic is enough. Sometimes it means cutting small openings at the splices or opening a section of wall. A good contractor will tell you up front which areas are likely to need opening, and plan the work so the patching lands where you were going to touch anyway.
Who pulls the permit matters too. Any business pulling Seattle electrical permits needs a Washington electrical contractor license and a Seattle business license, and the contractor who pulls it is taking responsibility for wiring somebody else installed. Expect them to want a close look before they put their license number on it. If you are comparing residential electricians in Seattle, WA, ask each one whether they have legalized existing work through SDCI before. Homeowners can pull an owner permit, but only on a house they own and live in, and then the corrections are on you.
On cost, plan for the permit fee plus the electrical work itself. Seattle’s fee code has its own section for work done without a permit, so ask SDCI what applies to your job when you apply.
When the wiring is part of a bigger problem
An electrical permit only covers the wiring. If the unpermitted work is a basement apartment, an attached ADU, a garage conversion or a new bathroom, the construction side needs its own SDCI building permit, and the electrical permit sits alongside it. Legalizing a whole basement unit is a bigger project than legalizing its wiring, and the building side usually sets the schedule. SDCI offers free 20-minute coaching sessions with a permit specialist, and that is a sensible first call before you hire any trade.
Why it is worth dealing with now
Unpermitted work in a house you bought rarely becomes a problem on a schedule you choose. It tends to surface at bad moments.
When you sell, the buyer will ask. Washington’s seller disclosure statement, known as Form 17, asks whether there have been conversions, additions or remodeling, and if so, whether all building permits and final inspections were obtained. A buyer’s inspector who opens your panel will find the same things we did.
When you file an insurance claim, the cause of an electrical fire gets looked at closely. Work that was never permitted or inspected is a hard thing to explain to an adjuster.
When you remodel, an inspector ends up standing at your panel. If the new work connects to a panel full of old problems, those problems become part of the job.
When someone complains, SDCI gets involved. Its own guidance says building without a permit can bring fines of up to $500 a day, plus other enforcement. Dealing with the work on your own schedule is a much better position than answering a notice.
If the seller knew about the work and did not disclose it, that is a question for a real estate attorney, not an electrician. Our part is telling you what is in the walls and what it takes to make it right.
How long it takes
The paperwork is the quick part. SDCI issues many residential electrical permits online the same day, and its goal is next-day inspections, though the next opening can be several days out. Legalizing one subpanel or a circuit that is easy to reach usually wraps up within a couple of weeks. A finished basement full of concealed wiring takes longer, mostly because of the opening, the corrections and the patching, and longer again if a building permit is involved.
Common questions about unpermitted electrical work in Seattle
Can I get a permit for electrical work that is already done?
Yes. An electrical contractor applies to SDCI for a permit that covers the existing work, makes any corrections, and calls for inspection. Owners who live in the house can apply under an owner permit instead.
Will the inspector make me open my walls?
Possibly, in places. The inspector has to see enough of the work to approve it, and how much opening that takes is their call. Exposed work in garages, basements and attics is usually straightforward.
Does legalized work have to meet today’s code?
Generally, yes. The permit is issued and inspected under the current Seattle Electrical Code, so older work often needs GFCI or AFCI protection, grounding fixes or labeling to pass.
How do I check whether work on my Seattle house was permitted?
Search the address in SDCI’s Permit and Site History Research Tool or the Seattle Services Portal, which covers 2005 to the present. For older permits, SDCI’s microfilm library keeps records indexed by address.
Does this apply outside Seattle?
Not the SDCI part. Shoreline and unincorporated King County go through L&I, and cities like Bellevue, Renton and Burien run their own electrical permits. The steps are similar, but the office and the forms are different.
Getting a straight answer about what is in your walls
We will come out, open the panel, look at what can be seen in the basement, attic and crawlspace, and tell you plainly what is fine, what needs a permit and what should come out. If the work is good, we say so. The estimate is free and in writing, with no trip charge. You can read what we usually find in Seattle houses by neighborhood and build year on our Seattle page. Request an estimate or call (253) 508-7529.
About the author
Alexandru Goncear is the owner and CEO of ElectON Enterprise and a Washington-licensed electrician working on residential systems across King, Pierce and Snohomish County. He writes every estimate himself and stays the point of contact through permitting, the work and the final inspection.
ElectON Enterprise. Kent office, closest to Seattle: 1609 Central Ave S Suite E, Kent, WA 98032. Headquarters: 36007 9th Ct SW, Federal Way, WA 98023. Phone: (253) 508-7529. Monday to Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, with emergency service 24 hours. Washington electrical contractor license ELECTEL765MN.