Royal Oak Building Inspection in Oakland County

I have had multiple interactions with Building Inspection Department and Code Enforcement in Royal Oak and much like the other employees of the city that I have interacted with, they are exceptional. Very helpful with information, very kind, prompt, and you can see they genuinely care about helping.

Royal Oak has the worst management for building inspection / permits. I submitted a rental certificate mid September and they schedule inspection for a date in the past... I waited almost 5 weeks to find out they they internally scheduled wrong and no one ever fixed it.There is definitely a sense of attitude when speaking to one out there, asking questions is returned with long pauses and lack of response - especially with someone new trying to follow the rules correctly with wide open ears and a pen / paper ready to go.Scheduling is difficult and I can now see why contractors are hesitant to work with this city.. Permits are paid and submitted yet the city doesn’t “process” it until who knows when... then stop orders are used and abused.Royal Oak: do you want to grow into a greater city where our children can thrive?

In my business I have to work with many city building departments and Royal Oak is simply the best! The person that answers the phone can usually answer my questions themselves but if not, they transfer me to the person with the answers promptly. With all the projects Royal Oak has going I cannot believe they can keep up with it but everyone there seems to have their finger on the pulse of my projects. Great crew! .... and Thank you!!

If I could have given this city a half a star I would have. This is by far the worst city in Michigan to do work in. Frank and Kevin are something else for sure they play back and forth games and lie to your face. Its pulling teeth to even get them to leave a approval or disapproval sticker and then dont ask for the violations because they dont have to provide you with that. Long story short if you have to do work in the city or Royal Oak charge triple your normal rate because this city loves to make things up and there is no one holding them accountable

Incredibly unhelpful. I purchased a flipped house and found out after the fact that there were open building permits. The title company claims they did not show up in their permit search, so someone somewhere dropped the ball. Now I’m stuck with open permits, failed inspections, an unresponsive contractor I didn’t hire, and the city’s solution is to hire a new contractor, have new permits pulled, and start all of this over at my expense.Also note that you have to call first thing in the morning before the inspector starts their route to get any kind of time estimate. I had a PM window, called at 9am since no one called me, was told it was too late since they were already on route, and then the inspector was irritated with me for not being home when he showed up at 11am. It’s ridiculous to expect people to set aside entire days to sit around waiting for inspectors.

If you follow the process - it works. Had a porch rebuilt recently. Was able to get permit questions answered on the phone and in person. Permit was approved in less than 2 weeks, never had an issue getting inspections scheduled and was able to confirm inspection windows if needed to keep contractor working.

Cant even give a two star review that would require answering the phone which the building department over a three hour period and over 25 phone calls did not Option 9 states were busy call back in five minutes LOL Good luck with that.

Addressed severe rat problems but not damage from rats

The system is broken. When a homeowner has to schedule an entire day off work to get an inspection, because they cant schedule a 2 hour / 4 hour window. A $500 dollar project costs $200 in permit fees. There has to be a better way ...

Would not give them any rating if able. The worst city dept Ive dealt with in multiple municipalities. The head of the dept. Jason is in my opinion basically stealing contractors and homeowners money alike by writing bogus fines. The only person we thought was honest Jim has basically gone down the same tube. The city should focus on the combating of their extreme rat problem than worry about the couple dollars they line the dept with by garbage fines. My complaint will be the city manager and social media maybe some day they will change. Thats laughable though

The website is down on weekends.