OK so let me build the house and post the ~$10k bond to demolish the house once I'm dead. Since in my case the alternative is no new house at all it'd be back

OK so let me build the house and post the ~$10k bond to demolish the house once I'm dead. Since in my case the alternative is no new house at all it'd be back to where we started after I'm dead and in the meantime the place I'm renting opens up to someone else. The handwaving about market asymmetry or whatever we all know is moving the goalposts from the corruption you were talking about earlier and easily bypassed anyway by posting a bond to demolish the house upon death/sale or other mechanisms like documentation of deviations or posting bond for special inspections upon transfer. In practice there's a place a few counties over from me that DOES do self-certification where they completely look the other way and all the crazy fears you have, haven't come to fruition and you can even transfer those houses unencumbered.