mikesh,
You talk about contractors finishing off basements etc without permits, lately the Realtor look for permits for finished rooms and they come to the town hall to make sure that a permit was taken out. If they don't the next seller of the house is responsible for the finished area. They will have to pay the back taxes on it, and the building permit and the fines for occupying an area with out a certificate. When my town finds a room finished with out permit, we go out a look at the job, the job will always fail until the owner gets permits, pays the fine, then they have to get licensed people in there to check out all of the hidden wires, connections etc. Then we will come back to the job and see if it then makes code. We look for missing outlets, GFI protection, etc.
