Call Southfield's building department the week you list a house and you'll walk away with a fee schedule, an inspection appointment, and a certificate you cannot close without. Southfield's own building department confirms the process runs through the city inspector, with a change-of-occupancy cost built from a $40 application fee, $100 per inspector, and $150 for the certificate itself.
Call the City of Farmington Hills and ask the same question, and the tone changes. For a standard owner-to-owner sale, the city simply does not run that program. Farmington Hills' certificate-of-occupancy requirement applies to commercial buildings and new construction, not to the resale of an existing single-family home. The Building Division's stated job is reviewing plans, issuing permits, and inspecting new or renovated structures for code compliance. It is not stationed at the closing table waiting to sign off on your sale.
If you've sold in Southfield, Flat Rock, or one of the several Wayne and Oakland County cities that still run a resale inspection program, that difference is disorienting. You expect a call from an inspector. In Farmington Hills, that call doesn't come, and sellers sometimes read the silence as a red flag rather than the actual policy.
The Part Everyone Assumes, and the Part That's Actually True
The assumption is understandable. Southeast Michigan is a patchwork of municipal resale rules, and plenty of nearby communities do require some version of a pre-sale inspection or certificate before title changes hands. That patchwork is exactly why "does the city inspect before I sell" isn't a question with one regional answer. It's a question with a different answer in every zip code, and Farmington Hills happens to land on the lighter end.
The direction of travel across the state also favors fewer of these programs, not more. In November 2025, the City of Adrian repealed its point-of-sale inspection ordinance by a vote of residents. Adrian's own city page is candid about what the repeal did and didn't change: sellers who already received a conditional certificate of compliance before the repeal are still on the hook for the repairs they agreed to, and the city can still enforce those obligations through its property maintenance code. The vote ended the mandatory pre-sale program going forward. It did not erase commitments already made under it.
That's a useful data point if you're wondering whether Farmington Hills might someday add a resale inspection requirement of its own. It's not impossible. But the recent trend among Michigan municipalities that have taken the question to a vote runs toward less friction at the closing table, not more.
So What Actually Slows Down a Farmington Hills Closing?
Here's the part that matters more than the inspection question. Farmington Hills not running a point-of-sale program doesn't mean the city has no eyes on your property. It means the mechanism is different, and it's one sellers are far more likely to overlook.
The city's own assessing department is explicit that a property inspection can be triggered by permits being pulled, by sales verification, or by a neighborhood reappraisal cycle. That's a quieter process than a mandatory pre-sale walkthrough, but it means the paper trail on your house, every deck, finished basement, water heater swap, or room addition that ever required a permit, stays connected to the address long after the work is done. A permit that was never formally closed out doesn't just sit there harmlessly. It's the kind of thing a title search, an appraiser, or a buyer's lender can surface late in a transaction, at exactly the point where a delay costs the most.
This is the mechanism sellers in point-of-sale cities rarely think about, because their city already forced the issue years earlier through a mandatory inspection. In Farmington Hills, nobody forces it. The permit history just waits for someone to look.
Pulling Your Own Permit File Is the New Version of the Inspection
The good news is that checking this yourself is more accessible than it used to be. Starting in early March 2026, the City of Farmington Hills moved its building permit applications and inspection requests entirely onto its online BS&A portal, replacing the old system of paper applications, over-the-counter visits, and phone-in inspection requests. The city framed the change as a way to improve processing times and give residents a more direct line into their own property records, and for a seller trying to reconstruct decades of permit history before listing, that's exactly the use case.
Before you sign a listing agreement, it's worth treating your own permit file the way a point-of-sale city would treat it for you:
- Search your address in the city's BS&A portal and pull every building, electrical, mechanical, and plumbing permit on record, not just the ones you remember pulling yourself.
- Cross-reference that list against anything visible on the property that would normally require a permit: finished basements, decks, sheds over 200 square feet, water heaters, sump pumps, structural changes, and window or exterior door replacements are all on the city's own list of permit-triggering work.
- If you find a permit that was opened but never closed out with a final inspection, whether by you or a previous owner, resolve it before you're under contract rather than during a buyer's due diligence window.
None of this requires a call to a city inspector demanding entry. It's a records check you can run yourself, which is precisely the trade Farmington Hills has made by not running a mandatory program. The city gives sellers more control. It also means the burden of exercising that control sits with the seller, not with a scheduled municipal appointment.
What This Means If You're Listing Soon
The headline version of this story is reassuring. No, Farmington Hills is not going to send an inspector to your door before your buyer can close, and you won't need to budget for a resale inspection fee the way a Southfield seller would. That's a genuine advantage in a market where every extra step between listing and closing is another chance for a deal to slip.
The fuller version is more useful. The absence of a mandatory inspection doesn't mean the city has stopped paying attention to your property's paper trail. It means that trail surfaces through permits and assessments rather than through a scheduled walkthrough, and it's on you to check it before a buyer's lender or appraiser does. Treat the permit search the way a seller in a point-of-sale city treats their inspection appointment: as a step that happens before you're under contract, not a surprise that happens during it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will my buyer's lender require a certificate of occupancy to close in Farmington Hills? Lenders generally only raise the question when a property has undergone substantial recent renovation or a change in use. For a typical resale with no major unpermitted work, this usually isn't a closing condition in Farmington Hills the way it can be in cities that run a mandatory resale program.
If I buy a home in Farmington Hills with an old, unclosed permit, is that my problem now? Obligations tied to a property, including unresolved permits, generally travel with the address rather than staying with whoever originally pulled the permit. That's exactly why pulling the full permit history before you buy, not just before you sell, is worth the ten minutes it takes on the city's portal.
Could Farmington Hills add a point-of-sale inspection requirement in the future? It's possible. Michigan cities set these rules individually, and any city council could revisit the question. But the most recent example of a Michigan municipality putting this to a vote, Adrian in November 2025, moved toward repealing a mandatory program rather than adopting one.
Selling in Farmington Hills comes with fewer procedural hoops than a lot of the surrounding suburbs, but fewer hoops isn't the same as none. If you're weighing a listing and want a second set of eyes on your permit history, your timeline, or how your property compares to what's moving in the neighborhood right now, Morris Hall and the Maxim Properties team are glad to walk through it with you. Schedule a consultation before you list, not after a buyer's lender finds something you didn't know was there.
