I'm seeing a lot of that sentiment, and my libertarian nature does agree with it; however, houses are often directly connected to a shared electrical, water and sewage systems -- improper design of a structure can have serious effects on these systems and thus on the neighborhood as a whole.
So, to allow that ideology, you'd also have to prevent these homes from being connected to these services.
And of course... So many other things... Your shoddily constructed deck can blow into my house during a windstorm, for example.
You say:
> I agree it should be optional to just live in an uninsured and unsellable shed if you want. The buyer or insurance company can make the inspection, should they want to.
But then go on to say:
> Should a publicly funded fire department put out the recurring fires in your house due to your homebuilt fireplace and diy electric wiring?
You can't have your cake and eat it too: allow reckless behavior, disregard neighbors' lives and property, and have a reasonable life and property loss prevention policy?
The purpose of your publicly funded fire department is to extinguish fires before they spread to nearby properties and cause even more loss.
The efficiency at which your city/town/village/county/etc's fire department performs this, is something everyone's insurance company pays very, very close attention to when building the elements and costs of policies that'll serve your neighborhood.
Your choices (albeit simplifying it a bit), are:
a) staff up on building inspectors and fire inspectors and spend on office space
-or-
b) staff up on fire fighters and spend on real estate acquiring parcels of land, building firehouses upon said parcels, acquiring more fire-fighting apparatus, and contribute additional funds to the state's firefighting training academy and your fire fighter's pensions and life insurance policies
To me, this (inspections vs. emergency response) is the very definition of proactive vs. reactive.
Sucks to buy a home and get drenched when the first heavy rain comes -- and find out the work was done with no permit.
No, children shouldn't be allowed to live in unsafe structures, I can't believe this is even a question.
If you don't have that, obviously the building can be neither sold nor insured.
I agree it should be optional to just live in an uninsured and unsellable shed if you want. The buyer or insurance company can make the inspection, should they want to.
That said, possible problems include: should you be allowed to raise kids in a house that might collapse (while you can't legally drive those same kids in your car without seat belts, for comparison)?
Should a publicly funded fire department put out the recurring fires in your house due to your homebuilt fireplace and diy electric wiring?
There are also accessibility standards - I'm not allowed to build a house that isn't accessible (e.g I can't only have bathrooms accessible by stairs, and one ground floor bathroom door must fit a wheelchair etc). The reason being that the prices on houses that are accessible might otherwise be higher because of limited supply.