city inspection on poor work done before owning the building

[Dave Carpenter]

Good morning all!

I had the city of Milwaukee inspection department (DNS for those of you who are local) call me the other day about an open inspection on one of the properties I recently bought. The short story, is there was a work order by the city put on the building for a faulty porch. The property was owned by Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac at the time and they hired a local company to install a new porch. This was over a year ago. I got a call from an inspector who siad that he had an open inspection that he needed to close out. 

It turns out someone at DNS closed out the work order without there being an inspection. 

The inspector met me out there yesterday and found all kinds of things wrong including using decking screws instead of lag screws for joists and headers, steps that are not even heights (the bottom step is more than 8" and the top step is about 3"! Tread depths of the steps are also incorrect. There are other things, but I think you get the point.

My question is this: Can I go back to the company that did the work and force them to correct the work they did that does not meet code? Do I have any recourse with the city department who inadvertently closed out a work order when they should not have. This is why it was not caught at the Title company when I purchased the property. 

What does the collective knowledge of this group think!?

[Marcus Auerbach]

@Dave Carpenter rule number one: the inspector is always right! Treat them with respect (no matter what), ask questions (some of them are really good) and understand that what they want you to do  is for the most part also in your best interest: having a building that is safe and will last for a long time. On my first property I thought I should do things without inspection. Partially because my contractors were not licensed and did not know how to pull permits! Yes, I know...

Try to make the contractor fix the issue, but he may not be the right guy - he would have done it right the first time. Don't fight the city, you will loose and get black listed - all the sudden they start poking arround in your building and records. I had a handyman once argue loudly with a Milwaukee insprector. A week later I had an electrical inspection on a newer service panel, maybe less than 5 years old. The property was a "as is" REO and whoever had updated the service did not pull a permit. Long story short, there was nothing wrong with it, but they made me pull it out and install a new one with permit and inspection. No joke! If my guy would not have insulted the inspector this would have never come up or they would have done an inspection on it and make me pay the permit fee, but not rip it out!