My dad built a massive deck that can be easily seen from the street. He went to get a permit, carrying the drawing from the designer, figuring they'd review it and give him his permit.

They said because he has septic, he's going to need to go to the health department to make sure it wouldn't hit the septic system. He was there when the house was built and knows full well it's at least 50 feet from any part of that system, but of course that doesn't matter. Then they said he'd have to go to another department to get a survey done to make sure it wasn't on his neighbor's property. The thing is going to be minimum like 200 feet from the property line, but nope. Required for the permit.

Then they said after the permit is granted, he has to call them back and have inspectors come out when he digs the footings to make sure they're deep enough per the drawing. Then after he builds the base structure, they need to come out again to make sure he followed the approved drawing.

He looked up the fine for failing to pull a permit... it's only 2x the cost of the permit in the first place. He figured even if he got caught, he's fine paying that price to avoid the days of delay and red tape just to build a deck on his own property. They haven't come knocking yet....