Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Can city permit officials �force� you to grant them access to inside your home?

There is a whole bunch of U.S. Supreme Court rulings on this subject, and law school and the bar exam were too many years ago for me to remember the details, but I do recall that building inspectors to have limited rights to make inspections without warrants or permission. It requires, I think, reasonable grounds to suspect a violation. Let me research the issue and get back to you in the morning.

Re: Can city permit officials �force� you to grant them access to inside your home?

Follow-up answer: Municipal inspectors need a warrant or the occupant's permission to make an inspection of residential property or even most kinds of commercial property. The leading case on the subject seems to be Camara v. Municipal Court of San Francisco (1967) 387 U.S. 523. This United States Supreme Court case held that municipal inspectors cannot make a warrantless search of a residence, even to do routine code enforcement. It was a five-to-four decision. So, that's the answer to you first question. The answer to your second question, about retaliation, is that retaliation would probably be in the form of swearing out an affidavit for a warrant, and going before a judge to obtain the warrant. If the inspector reappears with a facially-valid warrant in his hand, you'd then have to let him in, and you can be sure he will inspect with white glove and fine-tooth comb. As to whether the inspector broke any privacy laws, I'd say it was an attempt to violate your Constitutional rights, but trying to follow up on that attempted violation with a lawsuit would be futile, since you suffered no real harm as a result. Finally, as to what is a "140 inspection" - I have checked the Sonoma Municipal Codes, and the closest thing I can find is Section 140 of Chapter 1.30, which you should look up and read to see if it fits your situation. There are other possible provisions.