installing dining room light to switch

I recently installed recessed lighting and a few switches without a permit. Is there any impact of not having a permit when I go to sell my house? What about for liability (insurance) purposes? Thanks in advance!

I was replacing an ivory GFI with a white one in one of our two bathrooms (#1). There were two sets of wires (blk/wht/grnd), merged, to LINE side of the GFI, which I assumed were the supply line in and a continuation line out to the GFI outlet in the other bathroom. Curiously, both sets of wires were hot. I had to shut off two 15 amp breakers, one for each set of wires. Assuming this was a wiring error, I closed off one of the sets with wire nuts, leaving it unconnected, and wired the new GFI with the remaining set. It works fine. Now the GFI in bathroom #2 now will not power anything. BUt when the light is on in bathroom #2, both the black wire and the white wire of the outlet show hot to ground; when the light is off, the outlet is dead. I can understand that the two outlets were powered off the same circuit, and that I disconnected the one in bathroom #2. But I don't understand why the second one isn't dead all the time. Is this a normal situation or are two circuits somehow cross-connected?