We have been facing a bit of a conundrum lately and received several complaints about people living in agricultural or unpermitted buildings. We have been debating how far to go with our code enforcement and were looking to see what has worked for you. So far, we have notified these property owners and historically recorded a letter of non-compliance on the property.

After reviewing with our building department, we feel uncomfortable issuing occupancy permits for any of these buildings even if we did get a site inspection because we could never be sure everything was built to code.

So our question is, how have you handled these types of violations? Could you tell me what steps you took and what penalties you enforced?  

I appreciate your help.