Before you start organizing a garage sale, find out if you are allowed to hold one in your area. Many municipalities frown on these sales and you may have to pay a fee or only be allowed to set up in a certain area of town.

So before you start organizing a garage sale and laying out items, you had best check with your city or town government as well as your management company, should you happen to live in a managed development. If they approve of you having a sale of used items, then plow ahead. However, your town or community may require you to obtain a permit.

If you need to get a permit from the local government, or permission from your community, then it is question and answer time. Hopefully, you can call or email someone with questions. If you cannot, you will have to slog your way through the legalese on the forms and information sheets. However you do it, you must find answers to the following questions before you start organizing a garage sale:

1. How much does it cost?
2. How long will it take to get a permit?
3. For how many days is the permit good?
4. What are the rules for rain dates?
5. Are there any restrictions on how long you can remain open?
6. What are the restrictions on the size and number of signs?
7. Can you post flyers?
8. If so, where can you post flyers? Where can you not post flyers?

Once you know you have the approval, you can comfortably start pulling things out of storage and begin organizing a garage sale. These may seem like trivial things to take care of, but taking half and hour to make sure that you are OK sure beats having a by-law officer roll up to your garage sale and issue a $200 fine for holding a garage sale without a permit.