I have seen more than one horror story unfold where somebody did not and down the road did modifications only to find out the structure is not compliant and they are out a bunch of money to fix the situation.

If this is for their primary residence, there are some issues with being a compliant with Dodd Frank as a consumer lender.  

I'm not up on the lead paint regulations but can there can be a problem removing the trim in older homes and not being compliant?

To start off...there are literally thousands and thousands of non-compliant garden units in Chicago. 

All seems well, what else should I look into to make sure anyone I am purchasing from is compliant and all that fun stuff.

They'll expect everything to be code compliant at inspection time, so I wouldn't worry too much about pipe sizes, circuits, etc.

However, to me it is screaming ADA non compliant lawsuit. 

Think of it as the present value of the future death benefit.So to finally answer your question, while the excess premium is technically pre-paying the death benefit, you can still continue to make premium payments and still remain compliant with the government's rules.

There will be legal fees (you want to be SEC compliant right?). 

Other wise you could likely spend '$X and X amount of time freshening it up can becoming code compliant and then you may make a few thousand more.I sometimes get the contract.