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The Myth of Public Agency protection in the Building Permit Process
…A Primer Building a home or contracting for a work of improvement on your property can be an uneasy, eye-opening experience. Property owners seeking to build or improve their property often need to rely on the expertise of a licensed contractor who is competent in the particular work that must be performed… The relevant state and local building agencies have adopted building requirements that are, in large measure, based upon the Uniform Building Code (UBC). The UBC is published every three years by the International Conference of Building Officials (ICBO) and its intent is to impress reasonable standards of construction and safety upon the building public…
As part of its general police power, cities and counties may and do require that a building permit be obtained prior to the erection of a structure on privately owned property. As part of its many detailed requirements, the UBC requires that a building permit first be obtained from the applicable public agency/building official prior to any construction, repair or alteration of a building or structure. To obtain a permit, the building applicant must pay a statutory fee and file an application in writing on a form furnished by the code enforcement agency which identifies and describes the work to be covered by the permit. Plans, diagrams, computations and specifications are also required to be submitted along with the application for the building permit. Once submitted, the application and its accompanying data are then reviewed by the building official and by any other required departments to verify that the proposed work of improvement complies with the applicable building laws of the jurisdiction. If the building official finds that the requisite fee has been paid, and the work described in the permit application conforms to the requirements of the local building code and other pertinent laws and ordinances, the official will issue a building permit to the applicant…
Suppose that a year after the construction of a wood patio in the back yard of your home, one of the floor boards comes loose because the nails used by the contractor were too small and not code compliant. As a result, your child steps through the loose board while playing on the patio and injures herself. What legal recourse do you have available? While you may have a cause of action against the contractor (assuming you used one) for the negligent and defective workmanship, you likely have no legal right to sue the building inspector and/or the city building authority for negligently granting its approval of the construction in the first place. The reality is that if a building inspector fails to inspect your property or inspects the work that was done in an incompetent manner and then issues a final approval for the work that was inspected (or a Certificate of Occupancy for commercial structures), and an injury later occurs because the work turns out to be defective, the city is almost always immune from any liability.
…Building codes, the issuance of building permits, and building inspections are merely devices used by municipalities to collect the revenues that help fund the municipality. When viewed from this perspective, the building permits issued by public agencies are not meant to serve as insurance policies by which the municipality guarantees that each building is built in compliance with the building and zoning codes. The fees a city collects for issuing building permits merely act to offset expenses incurred by the city in promoting the public interest in general, and in no way function as insurance premiums which make the city liable for each item of defective construction on the improved premises. A building permit simply represents to the property owner that the work that was inspected is complete and that all of the required administrative details have been performed by the contractor to the building inspector’s satisfaction…
