My take on this is somewhat different, and requires understaning of the conditions in our area (your conditions may vary
)
Chicago is the 900 lb. gorilla, in this area. Chicago is very union heavy (it’s called votes, and has lead to patronage). The Chicago building dept. is, generally, a revolving door employment center for union contractors, especially those who are union connected (and can make or break a political candidate’s election results :mrgreen: )
Plus, Chicago has codes that find their origians in the Great Chicago Fire. This was a great opportunity for a) the democrats to take over the city (which was overwhelmingly republican, before the fire), b) the “little people” (mostly Irish, but also Polish and Greek and Italian immigrants) to take over and c) a BIG building boom (and the first big federally subsidized building boom) to replace the destroyed housing. About 60% of the existing 3 to 42 flat apartment buildings (most, now, converted to condos) were built in the 50 years between the fire and the start of the Great Depression, with 50% built between 1919 (end of WW I) and 1928 (the beginnings of the Great Depression). I owned 12 3 to 6 flats, in Chicago, and all were built between 1922 and 1925.
After the great porch collapse of 2003 has lead to the recent Illinois court decision, which has determined that “local code inspectors have no liability for personal injury or property damage in the event that residential property is not in substantial compliance with building codes”.
Please understand. Illinois is a “home rule” state. This means that any municipality of 10,000 or more can set, any way the want, their own local building codes (with the exception of the state plumbing code, but Chicago is the exception).
I work in 92 different municipalities, with 92 different local AHJ codes, and many of them are contridictory.
So, in Illinois, local code officials have NO responsibility (they cannot, by state law and case law) be sued if the mess up, but have ALL the authority (i.e. can shut down construction).
Home inspectors have responsibility (we can be sued for missing “defects”, but have no authority. The Illinois State HI law REQUIRES us to call things out according to “Current Construction Standards (i.e., the current national codes)” and no local AHJs have adopted these codes (the are usually, about 2 to 4 years behind).
Quite a quandry, eh? 