Hawaii County Tells Homeowner His 38-Year-Old House Is Actually Illegal

Shahzaad Ausman has had to sue the county to confirm that he can continue to live in his own home.

Hawaii Homeowner Goes Through Permit Hell After County Tells Him His Decades-Old Home Is Illegal

by Christian Britschgi, Reason, 4.15.2025

When Shahzaad Ausman purchased a small seaside home in Captain Cook, Hawaii, in 2021, he had every reason to believe that it was a perfectly legal dwelling.

The home was first built in 1987 and the original owner had lived in it for years without incident.

The second owner Ausman was purchasing the home from had recently obtained a remodeling permit in 2020 to make repairs and alterations.

As part of his due diligence during the purchasing process, Ausman had confirmed with the county that the remodeling permit was valid for five years. An agent and appraiser working for Ausman also confirmed with the county there weren't any outstanding permit issues with the home.

"Three people checked with the county that everything was good on the permit and everything was good," Ausman tells Reason.

With those assurances from the county, Ausman purchased the property and continued with partially completed remodeling work.

But, as local Hawaiian media has reported, the county's assurances proved to offer Ausman little protection from the bureaucratic nightmare that was soon to follow.

The Nightmare Begins

At the time that Ausman purchased the home, Hawaii County was in the process of setting up a new Electronic Permitting and Information Center (EPIC) to track building permits. Soon after the EPIC system was to go live, all permits that had been open for more than five years would be declared null and void.

Property owners would have a grace period to renew their permits before June 1, 2022. After that, they'd have to start the permitting process from scratch.

On that June deadline, a full 40,000 permits were nixed by the county.

Since the permit Ausman inherited from the previous owner was good through 2025, he didn't think he had anything to worry about.

In early 2022, after already spending $138,000 on remodeling work on the house, Ausman called the county to get a final inspection on some of the completed work. But no one from the county responded.

Finally, in July 2022, a county official told Ausman over the phone that, contra past assurances, his permit had expired. But not the 2020 permit.

Rather, the county was now telling Ausman that the original 1987 building permit for his home had expired on the June 1, 2022, deadline.

The county asserted that even though a building permit had been issued for the 1987 home, there was no record of a final inspection having been completed. Therefore, it was the county's position that the permit was never finalized and thus was canceled along with the 40,000 permits that were axed as part of the EPIC overhaul.

According to the county, Ausman's entire home was illegal. He could not continue his remodeling work or even occupy the home without the risk of daily fines.

In an October 2022 letter to Ausman, the county also said that he would have to remove the remodeling work he'd already completed and apply for a completely new building permit.

Setbacks

Getting a new building permit was also easier said than done.

When the original owner of Ausman's home constructed the dwelling in 1987, he was able to build it 27 feet from the shoreline.

Since then, Hawaii's state and local coastal development regulations have been amended to require development be setback 40 feet from the shoreline.

As Ausman explained in a December 2024 interview with the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii's Joe Kent, his home's 27-foot proximity to the shoreline would likely prevent him from obtaining a required "special management area" permit from the state.

If he wanted to get a new permit, he'd have to move it back to the new 40-foot limit.

Doing so however would then require him to rebuild the home to the current building code standards, which are much more stringent than the standards that were in effect in 1987.

That, he tells Reason, would mean "basically changing every stick and every nail in the house." In effect, he would have to demolish his home completely and start over.

In that October 2022 letter, the county had given Ausman 90 days to apply for a new permit.

Instead, given the amount of money he'd already sunk into the house and the expense posed by a complete rebuild, he decided to appeal the county's revocation of his permit.

Ausman's appeal would be heard by the Hawaii County Board of Appeals. Ausman would have to convince this body staffed by county officials, over the objections of county counsel, that the county had made a mistake.

In May 2023, the county Board of Appeals decided that the county hadn't made a mistake. Rather, it told Ausman he had made a mistake by relying on the county's assurances that his home was legal. He'd need to start the permitting process over again.

His administrative options exhausted, Ausman filed a lawsuit against the county in Hawaii's 3rd Circuit District Court.

Late last month, the court ruled firmly in Ausman's favor.

Judge Wendy M. DeWeese found that Ausman had reasonably relied on the county's assurances that all his permits were up-to-date when he began his remodeling work.

The county's subsequent decision to revoke his permits was "clearly erroneous," it said.

The decision entitles Ausman to proceed with the work on his home he began four years ago. All he needs to move forward is for the court to enter its judgment.

Pending Appeal

Still, Ausman is not quite out of the woods yet.

The county has 30 days to appeal DeWeese's decision after the judgment is officially entered.

Ausman says that after the court's decision, the county told him again that they would still issue him a notice of violation if he attempted to continue his remodeling work or reoccupy the house.

He speculates that the county is pressuring him to settle the case to stave off an appeal and all the legal process and expense that would entail.

He tells Reason he has little interest in reaching a settlement with the county now that he's won in the district court. "I have very little faith in doing that for them," he tells Reason. "I won. I don't have any incentive" to settle.

---30---

ASD: Hawai‘i Island homeowner wins three-year permit battle