why I prefer to diy

[firebirdparts]

Authority without responsibility,a big part of what’s wrong with this country everywhere.

You know, I wonder what is the temptation to blame the county commission instead of blaming the contractor, who is actually at fault. You think it's just safer? The commission is not really allowed to be rude to you. Could be the fact that the county confiscates plenty for all. He mentioned in the commission meeting the fact that the county has "the money" [and you could you just give it to me]. Might not be true of the contractor.

 

[reader2580]

Fake news. The county commission didn't built that house, and the inspector wasn't supposed to catch structural sloppiness. The contractor is 100% at fault. The county is 0% at fault. The inspector is 0% at fault. Simple as that.

It is the contractor's job to build the house to code at a minimum. It is the building inspector's job to verify the house was built to code. Both of them failed to do their jobs.

 

[Old tool guy]

I read … tried to read … the list of deficiencies. Looks like a typical auditors report … lacks detail. Two items: front porch support column not graded & stamped. If it had been turned to shape on a lathe, would it be stamped? Is it the proper size?
Over-spanned floor joist under laundry room. Ok ... what is the actual span? Is it one inch more than allowed? One foot?

 

[zippyslug31]

There is literally no one that hires an owner's inspection agency for residential construction until residences get so big and cost so much they mostly start to resemble commercial buildings (where every owner has their own inspector seperate from the building official inspections). I'm not saying you should have done that as its not commonplace. All I am pointing out is that legally, no "inspector" working for any government agency will ever be liable for anything that wasn't constructed properly. The contractor is liable becuase that entity actually constructed your house. Its no more complex than that. The purpoted goal of construction plan review and inspections and the resulting permit fee (wether explicitly stated or not) is to verify that construction throughout their jurisdication is mostly uniform and generally adheres to whatever building code is in effect. "Mostly" and "generally" being the key words here. If they catch something great, if they don't catch anything its no skin off their back - which is infuriating I get it. But they aren't your inspector working for you as much as it might seem that should be the case because you pay taxes and all that. I don't know how else to say this. Your house could burn down from an electrical snafu that the inspector should have caught - your recourse is the general contractor and their electrical subcontractor. And its not me "just saying this", I have witnessed this over and over again in various construction litigation cases. No inspector or government agency is ever on the hook. Hilariously, every time someone brings up, "well this passed inspections" in a construction litigation case, they are literally laughed out of the room as everyone knows its meaningless.

Edit: think of a situation where there was no building department/inspections. Everyone would do whatever they wanted and it would be chaos. I'm not a fan of the current system, but it certainly beats the anachy of no system. Much like democracy, its the worst way of government except for all of the other ways to govern.

Sorry man, sounds like you took this as me calling you out; you're points are all technically correct and I'm not disagreeing with you.
The "****" part is that it's even on the table that a consumer might need to hire a private inspector to follow behind either/both a contractor and the county inspector.

Taking it that one step further, even the private inspector will likely have terms that they can't be held responsible if something shows up later, nor should they. It's just exhausting that there's so many people out there who lack a sense of ownership in their role.

 

[dcg9381]

He mentioned in the commission meeting the fact that the county has "the money" [and you could you just give it to me]. Might not be true of the contractor.

Reading the article, the GC was financially defunct and would not be able to make it right. Course, we're trusting the contractor on that.

This sort of thing is not uncommon here... Bad "home builders" (GCs) - no license is required. I've seen so many home owners get screwed it's nuts. They just close up shop and open a business under a different name.

I get the level of frustration with a city employee that had such a big miss in his responsibilities. That doesn't make the city liable though.

I always tell people to run a search of county civil court records and see how many times your GC has been sued personally.

 

[p00p]

This sort of thing is not uncommon here... Bad "home builders" (GCs) - no license is required. I've seen so many home owners get screwed it's nuts.
I always tell people to run a search of county civil court records and see how many times your GC has been sued personally.

I am merely asking to ask, not expecting anyone here to know; How is that not tracked & well linked in preventing the flyby night business from doing such thing?
I would expect at a minimum for a Soc Sec # along with tax ID to be tied to anyone opening such a business.
If the business is not US based, then other 'common' tactics for ensuring accountability is kept in place should be used.

Should the proposed business not wish to comply, they are welcome to come back when they are ready. Any honest business wouldn't have issues in complying imo.

 

[paredown]

We had a local tragedy where a care home caught fire and burned, with a death toll of 2--a resident and a fire-fighter. Both the town building inspector and the assistant building inspector were initially charged with falsifying fire inspection records with State inspectors. (Others were charged as well.)
NYTimes (gift article)

The assistant has had felony charges dismissed--then misdemeanor charges were still being heard in court, and all charges were dismissed. And the Building inspector finally had all charges dismissed as well.

Now this was a hard case to parse, since the falsification charges were the issue and they failed to prove that in court--but the background is that this jurisdiction has had repeated crises and malfeasance by the building department. The village has long been known for its lack of oversight and enforcement of building and safety codes. A state monitor was actually in place at the time of the fire and the village had been required to file reports with the state on code inspections and compliance actions.

One previous inspector was charged with approving an illegal daycare in two private residences--he got 5 years probation (2019). A Town(ship) inspector in the same general jurisdiction was charged and convicted for undercharging contractors for permits--and he did not serve time in jail and was allowed to resign and paid no restitution:

Anthony Mallia, the former Ramapo building inspector charged with 188 counts of undercharging contractors for permits and shortchanging taxpayers by $150,000 in the process, won't serve jail time and won't have to make restitution, a judge decided Monday

The prosecutors that brought the recent case had this to say:

Peter Walker, a spokesman for the Rockland County District Attorney’s Office, released the following statement:
"The yearslong disorganization and disfunction of the Spring Valley Building Department served as a defense in these cases. The court chose not to hold these defendants accountable for their role in the malfeasance in the building department. We disagree with the Court's decision and are disappointed in it. As a result of this investigation by the Rockland County District Attorney’s office and other state and local agencies, the New York State Department of State intervened and had the County of Rockland take over the Spring Valley Building Department. The Rockland County District Attorney’s office is willing to prosecute not just the easy cases but the difficult as well. ”

All charges dismissed against former building inspector in connection to deadly Spring Valley fire

Ray Canario was charged with filing false inspection reports in connection with the Evergreen Court Home for Adults.

westchester.news12.com

The interesting part of the story to me is that despite the known problems with not-to-code buildings, it took a tragic fire before people got serious about going back to look at what might have been passed that actually represents potential unsafe buildings. And from what I have seen, even in cases of malfeasance or actual graft, inspectors walk.

 

[dcg9381]

I am merely asking to ask, not expecting anyone here to know; How is that not tracked & well linked in preventing the flyby night business from doing such thing?
I would expect at a minimum for a Soc Sec # along with tax ID to be tied to anyone opening such a business.

I think lots of other states regulate this a lot tighter by requiring people like "home builders" to be licensed, registered, meet minimum qualifications and insurance.

Texas in some ways is still the "wild west".

Lenders will want to see home builders with some financial records / track records. And some "communities" will only let certain home builders in after they complete financial audit. But if you an scrape together a few hundred K (even unsecured loans) you can build a home.

But to answer your question, these are legitimate businesses (from an entity standpoint) with a tax ID. But what's to keep the owner/controlling agent from taking business checks and transferring them to personal accounts? Or better yet, use business funds to purchase property for relatives - as 1st homes are protected asset classes in some cases. I've seen all of that happen.

And in the end, if the money is "spent" and the business (or individual) becomes insolvent, the best attorney in the world cannot extract water from a rock.

And assets? Their trucks are leased, their equipment (if they own any) is leased - and probably behind on payments. Nothing to recover. GC here is largely a management / manager business where the money you make is a margin on other trades.

And the trades will keep working if they're promised that their last bill will be paid as soon as they complete the next bill.

 

[ybnormal]

should requiring a "completion insurance policy" help? or will the GCs just laugh at that?

 

[dcg9381]

should requiring a "completion insurance policy" help? or will the GCs just laugh at that?

I think you mean "performance bond". I know that my home builder would have gone for it, but he also would have passed the cost on to me. Apparently that's going to be a cost increase of 1-4% of total contract price.

The deal is, because the inspections were "signed off" - I'll bet that becomes a litigation issue... But in this particular case where the builder was "insolvent" (or that's the claim) it does give you a litigation target with some money.

 

[ybnormal]

I think you mean "performance bond". I know that my home builder would have gone for it, but he also would have passed the cost on to me. Apparently that's going to be a cost increase of 1-4% of total contract price.

The deal is, because the inspections were "signed off" - I'll bet that becomes a litigation issue... But in this particular case where the builder was "insolvent" (or that's the claim) it does give you a litigation target with some money.

so, a $5000 insurance policy to ensure it's done right? vs squeezing blood from a turnip?

 

[Uncle murph]

You know, I wonder what is the temptation to blame the county commission instead of blaming the contractor, who is actually at fault. You think it's just safer? The commission is not really allowed to be rude to you. Could be the fact that the county confiscates plenty for all. He mentioned in the commission meeting the fact that the county has "the money" [and you could you just give it to me]. Might not be true of the contractor.

I’m not blaming the county,I’m just pointing out that if the county is going to demand that they be part of the process (at my expense)then at the very least they should be ensuring that the work is done to there codes,if they’re not then what the hell are they there for?

 

[bb29510]

the county never accepts resposnibilty, they only job is to justifly the increase of property tax