An industry update from Inspection.re, premium home inspections across California.
A converted garage has a permit final in one California city. Two miles away, in the next city, the same conversion gets reviewed under the same adopted code section. The second building department reads the ceiling height differently, or wants a different fire separation between the dwelling and the garage. The first city signed it off. The second city wants more work.
That is a composite of a situation that comes up often, not one identifiable property. The reason the two answers differ is simple, and it is not that one of the building officials is wrong. There has never been a single statewide place to ask which reading controls. On September 20, 2026, California decided not to create one: Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed Assembly Bill 306, which would have expanded the California Building Standards Commission’s role in local code disputes. The local building department still decides what the adopted standards mean for the property in front of it.
The veto changed nothing, and that is the news
AB 306 did not change the answer a buyer, seller or agent gets from a local building department, because the bill never took effect.
It was authored by Assemblymember Nick Schultz of Burbank, titled “California Building Standards Commission: appeals: code interpretations,” and it went the distance. The Senate passed it on August 26, 2026. The Assembly passed it on August 27. It was enrolled on September 1. The Governor vetoed it on September 20, and his message began, “I am returning Assembly Bill 306 without my signature.”
That leaves the current system in place. Local building officials continue to make the calls on permits, alternate methods, completed work and local interpretations, and for a property transaction that is not a technical footnote. If a converted garage was approved in one city, that approval does not answer what the next city will require. If a contractor says a method complies, that statement does not bind the building official.
The practical answer still comes from the jurisdiction where the work sits. Permit and code questions belong with that local building department. Legal questions about disclosure, contract duties or a dispute over the work belong with a California real estate attorney. Our earlier explanation of how the adopted building standards code shows up in an inspection covers why the standards themselves matter. AB 306 leaves the decision maker unchanged.
AB 306 would have created a state path for code disputes
The bill would have expanded the reasons a person could appeal to the California Building Standards Commission, and it would have added a route that does not currently exist.
New appealable matters would have included “a request for approval to use an alternate material, assembly of materials, equipment, method of construction” and similar items, so someone facing a local decision on an alternate material or construction method could have asked for state level review. The Commission could have accepted an appeal only when the issue had “statewide significance” and the person seeking it had “exhausted all local appeals procedures,” with an exception where the affected person and the local agency appealed jointly.
The bill also reached the stage before a dispute hardens into an appeal. It stated that “Any person may request a code interpretation from the commission relative to the intent of any regulation or provision” adopted by the Commission, with project specific requests reviewed alongside the appropriate local enforcing agencies. The Commission would have had to post appeals decisions and code interpretations on its website “in a searchable format,” and local agencies would have been required to post their own written rules online, clearly identified as interpretations and linked to related amendments.
None of that took effect. There is no state request process available to a buyer, seller, contractor or homeowner today.
You cannot appeal your building official on your own
A homeowner who disagrees with a building official cannot take that disagreement to the state alone. That is the sentence most people are surprised by, and it survives the veto intact.
Health and Safety Code section 18945 says that any person adversely affected by a state agency’s regulation, rule or decision regarding building standards may appeal to the California Building Standards Commission. That path points at state agencies. A separate rule governs the situation almost everyone actually has: where a local agency has authority to enforce a state building standard, an appeal of that agency’s regulation, rule, omission, interpretation, decision or practice requires that both the local agency and the adversely affected person want the appeal, and the Commission must also find the issue involves statewide significance.
AB 306 would have removed that first requirement. Because the bill was vetoed, it stands. In plain terms, the city has to agree to be appealed. That matters the moment a local official rejects an alternate method, requires additional work, or reads a provision differently from the contractor who did the job.
The first step remains local. Ask the building department what process applies, because most jurisdictions have one, and ask for the position in writing. If the dispute starts to touch legal rights, disclosure duties or a contract, that is a California real estate attorney’s question rather than a building department one.
Why the Governor said no
The veto message did not say local code disputes do not matter. It said the proposed state route did not make clear who would have the last word.
Governor Newsom wrote that the bill “does not clearly explain how the Commission’s new appeals pathway would interact with the existing processes administered by the California Energy Commission, the State Historical Building Safety Board, and the Office of the State Fire Marshal,” agencies that “already administer specialized energy, fire, and life-safety standards, resolve disputes arising from local decisions, and evaluate alternative methods of compliance.”
The concern was overlap. “Allowing the same issues to be presented to the Building Standards Commission without specifying which agency has final authority could result in duplicative proceedings, inconsistent interpretations, and project delays.”
It tied that to housing, saying the risks “are particularly concerning for housing projects, where uncertainty over applicable building standards can delay approvals, disrupt financing, increase construction costs, and ultimately prevent urgently needed homes from being built,” and added that “The new process would also impose significant ongoing costs without dedicated funding.” The closing line was short. “For these reasons, I cannot sign this bill.”
The shape of that message is an administration protecting a simplification it already made, rather than rejecting statewide consistency as an idea. Which suggests the question comes back in a future session rather than being settled.
Why there are two different AB 306s on the internet
Search the bill number and two different subjects come back. That is not an error. The number carried one subject and ended up carrying another.
The veto message is the source for this. It says “Last year’s state budget incorporated provisions from an earlier iteration of this measure that generally paused new residential building standards until mid-2031, providing greater regulatory certainty and helping contain construction costs.” So the residential standards pause that started in AB 306 moved into the budget, and the bill number was then used for the appeals and interpretations content that passed both houses in August 2026 and was vetoed in September.
If you are looking for the pause itself, that is a separate story and we covered it in our explanation of the residential building code freeze that runs to 2031. If someone cites AB 306 as proof that a state appeal process now exists, check which version they are describing. It does not.
A code interpretation is a local document, and usually an unpublished one
A code interpretation is the position a building department takes on what an adopted standard requires in a specific situation, and for your property it comes from the local building official.
AB 306 would have let any person ask the Commission for an interpretation of the intent of a provision it adopted, required those interpretations posted in a searchable format, and required local agencies to publish and label their own written rules. Neither requirement exists.
That is the quiet consequence of the veto. Two neighbouring jurisdictions can hold different readings of the same adopted standard, and neither has to post its reading anywhere a buyer can find it. The standard is statewide. The reading is not, and it is often not written down in a place you can search.
Alternate materials and methods stay local too. A request for approval goes to the building official, and the vetoed bill would have made that kind of request appealable to the state. It is not. Do not assume a contractor’s preferred method will be accepted.
What this means when you are buying a house with unpermitted work
Start with the local building department’s permit history, then get the building official’s position in writing before assuming a retroactive permit is available on reasonable terms.
An inspection report documents what is visible and identifies material defects. It does not settle a code dispute and it is not a substitute for the permit record. Confusing the two is how a buyer ends up owning a problem they thought had been cleared.
A contractor may say a garage conversion, a service upgrade, a plumbing alteration or a structural repair meets code. Treat that as a claim to verify. Ask what the department requires to resolve completed work, ask whether the official will review existing construction and what documents, exposure or inspections that would take, and keep the answers in writing, because staff change and memories do not survive escrow.
This is where documentation earns its keep. Inspection.re runs premium inspections across California with same-day reports, 3D Matterport tours, drone roof imagery and FLIR infrared scanning, and our inspectors carry InterNACHI Certified Professional Inspector credentials. A high resolution record of what was actually built, in hand the same day, is something concrete to take to a building department counter. It does not certify compliance. It shows condition and observed construction, which is usually what the conversation needs to start.
Timing matters as much as content, and the inspection contingency timeline is the other half of that decision. For the edge of our scope, read what a home inspection covers and what needs a specialist.
What this means when you are selling
The seller risk is discovering during escrow that the city does not read the work the way the work was done. It shows up on owner completed work, converted garages, additions, alternate materials and changes described casually over the years. A contractor’s assurance, an old invoice, or a settled belief that no permit was needed is none of them the building department’s current position.
Getting ahead of it takes time that escrow does not have, because requesting permit records and asking the building official about unresolved work is slow and the answer occasionally requires opening something up. Our guide to whether a pre-listing inspection is worth it for a California seller covers the inspection half of that decision, with one blunt limit: an inspection documents condition before listing, and it cannot turn unpermitted work into permitted work.
Separate the three questions and the whole thing gets easier. What condition is visible? What work appears to have been done? What does the building department say about permits and compliance? Those answers come from three different people, and only one of them is us. Disclosure wording itself is a question for a California real estate attorney.
What a home inspection can and cannot settle
California defines a home inspection as “a noninvasive, physical examination, performed for a fee in connection with a transfer … of the mechanical, electrical, or plumbing systems or the structural and essential components of a residential dwelling of one to four units designed to identify material defects.”
That is the statutory job, and it is worth reading closely for what it does not say. Nothing in it makes an inspector the person who certifies that work complies with code. We are not a permit record and we are not a building official.
In practice the boundary is easy to hold. An inspector can report a ceiling lower than a habitable room would normally have, an altered electrical installation, a missing separation between a garage and living space, or a water heater installed where the venting no longer works. All of that goes in the report. None of it decides whether the local agency will accept the condition, require correction, or approve an alternate method. Read the report alongside the city’s records and the building official’s written position rather than instead of them. Our guide to reading a California home inspection report explains how to treat it as a condition document, and what is included in an Inspection.re inspection and how the report itself is delivered set out what you actually get.
On process the state has moved the other way, as the remote inspection law for solar and heat pump permits shows. Simplifying how a permit inspection happens is not the same as settling what the code means. The same split shows up elsewhere in a transaction: a FEMA flood map change is a lending and disclosure event that an inspection report cannot settle either.
Quick questions
Can a homeowner appeal a local building official directly to the California Building Standards Commission?
No. Because AB 306 was vetoed, both the local agency and the adversely affected person must want the appeal, and the issue must involve statewide significance.
Can a contractor approve an alternate material or construction method?
No. That request goes to the local building official. A contractor can propose a method. The proposal is not the decision.
Does a home inspection certify code compliance?
No. The statutory inspection is a noninvasive physical examination intended to identify material defects. The building department answers permit and code questions, and we will say so in the report rather than guess.
Can two cities read the same building standard differently?
Yes, and after this veto they still are not required to publish those readings. The adopted standard is statewide. The interpretation applied at the counter is local.
What should a buyer do first with unpermitted work?
Ask for the permit history, then get the building official’s position in writing before assuming a retroactive permit is available. Legal questions go to a California real estate attorney, condition questions to your inspector.
The honest summary
California came within one signature of creating a statewide referee for building code interpretation, and the signature did not come. What survives is the system most people already deal with without knowing its shape. The building department decides. You cannot appeal it to the state on your own. The interpretation that applies to your addition may never have been written down anywhere you can read it.
So do the work in the order that helps. Get the permit history. Get the building official’s position in writing. Keep the inspection report separate from the code question, because it answers a different one. Send contract and disclosure questions to a California real estate attorney. And if you are buying something that has clearly been changed since it was built, plan for that conversation to take longer than the contingency period you were given, because it usually does.
AB 306 was not the only bill decided that day. The Governor vetoed two common interest development bills on the same date, and the condo disclosure requirements that survived them are already more demanding than most buyers realize. He also signed a landfill subsurface temperature statute with a 131 degree trigger, which reaches properties that will never see a building department dispute.
If you want the building itself documented properly while you sort the paperwork out, Inspection.re inspects across California, including Newark, Union City, Fremont and Hayward. Our frequently asked questions cover scheduling, scope and the same-day report.
- AB 1738 Is Signed: Here Is What Actually Changes. A different 2026 permitting bill, signed rather than vetoed, that changes how certain inspections happen without touching who interprets the code.
