The subjects of these nightmare stories you hear of that are repeatedly going ’round and ’round with the bureaucratic “code-nazis” are primarily the DIYers on a shoestring or persons that fired their architect and/or builder midstream.
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If a private citizen threw that kind of money at architects,engineers and even contractors, to handle the “code nazis” they probably wouldn’t feel the pain or realize how screwed up the planning and building departments are. They would probably get ripped off on several items though.
Bg, I have drawn and ran my plans on three houses and have interfaced with planning, building and code compliance on many permits and other items. I have had private professionals interject and tell me that I needed expensive elements that I did not. I have fought off fees that I did not have to pay.I have fought off attempts at forced compliance of scams. I have delt with a tremendous amount of incompetence, carelessness and outright shakedowns on the part of the planning,building and code compliance departments. That you would insinuate that problems mostly arise from being a diyfer is just so wrong on so many fronts. I am sure many are not as prepared to do this as I am, but clearly the failures are on the other side of the counter and with the real professional third parties to a huge extent.