Collier County - County staff will seek direction, May 26, on how to proceed with drafting an ordinance that would require a code inspection prior to a home resale.

The proposed Certificate of Use program will be presented in two formats – mandatory for foreclosures or voluntary for all homes.  

 According to John Barlow, founder of Housing Opportunities Made for Everyone, code inspections should be mandatory, but only for foreclosure sales.

“It would be unwise to tack this 800-pound gorilla onto every house that goes to sale,” he says, noting the number of foreclosures coming online each month is exceeding the number of new homes coming online at the height of the real estate boom in 2005. “No one wants government in their life any more than necessary. But, we have to react to the volume of inventory swamping our real estate market and we have to protect homebuyers.”

Click HERE to read the May 20, 2009 Naples Daily News Article in its entirety.

Examples of code violations, and an illegal addition: