Without informing the town to obtain the proper permits, the Clintons apparently set the project in motion soon after they bought the house in August, with an eye toward having everything ready for the holidays.

“I was told that the owners wanted to have all work done and finished by Thanksgiving and were quite adamant about it,” William Maskiell, the building inspector for New Castle, N.Y., wrote in his inspection report after speaking to a contractor. (Chappaqua is a hamlet within New Castle.)

“What started as a paint job turned into this,” he added.

For the Clintons, the purchase of the home on Old House Lane gave them a second residence on the street and a significant foothold in the Westchester County neighborhood where they have lived since 1999, accompanied by a Secret Service detail.

But in the final days of Mrs. Clinton’s presidential campaign, the new house and its run-in with the local building permit office are giving the Clintons something of a headache.

The permit process — which comes with fees, inspections and, potentially, elevated property assessments — can be cumbersome and is familiar to the millions of voters who own homes and have made upgrades. Some may be sympathetic to the Clintons’ stumbling on the local regulations, while others could see them as feeling as though the rules do not apply to them.