The Story (EN)

In autumn 2020, we bought a house. A beautiful home near the sea.

We were cautious. Our purchase offer included an approved final inspection as a condition for the sale. We didn’t want to buy a house that authorities hadn’t inspected and approved.

The municipal building control conducted the final inspection. The sale was concluded after that.

We trusted the authority. That was a mistake.

In spring 2021, the house had an electrical fault. We called an electrician to investigate.

He quickly located the fault in the main fuse box: a 35-amp fuse had blown. When he opened the fuse cabinet, he saw that the fuse terminal was completely black. There had been sparking in the cabinet. A real fire hazard.

The installer looked at the installations and said: “This is Russian roulette wiring.” The installer noted that the fuse was crooked and the fuse base was broken. The faulty installation was from the seller who acted as the builder.

I reported the damage to the insurance company. They refused to compensate. Reason: there was an error in the electrical installations. Installation errors are not covered by insurance.

We began investigating who had done the installations.

It turned out that our house’s electrical installations were missing the commissioning inspection and that the installations had been done by a man who had no electrical contracting license. Employees of the local energy company called him “an electrical cowboy”.

The builder who acted as the seller knew or at least should have known about the errors. We knew nothing.

A Tukes-authorized inspector documented the findings:

Over half of the installations were done incorrectly. Life-threateningly so.

But this was just the beginning.

Then something worse was revealed.

The building permit had expired nine years before the final inspection and for part of the house, a building permit had never even been applied for.

The building inspector had approved the final inspection without a valid permit. Without mandatory intermediate inspections. The electrical system was approved based on an electrical inspection report that was made 13 years after the installations.

When we asked about this, the building inspector admitted everything:

“And isn’t it also a prerequisite that there must be a valid building permit for a final inspection to be done?”

“That’s what the legislation says, yes, it’s unambiguous in that respect… we have interpreted… we do it, so to speak, for the benefit of the citizens.” — Markku Aro, Building Inspector, Naantali, April 6, 2022

Our purchase offer’s condition for sale was the final inspection. If we had known that the permit had expired and the inspection was illegal, we would never have bought the house.

The authority knew they were acting contrary to law. Yet they did it anyway.

In 2025, the case proceeded to District Court. The building inspectors were questioned as witnesses.

Each of them confirmed what Aro had already admitted: they knew.

No ambiguities. No misunderstandings. They knew what the law says – and chose to act differently.

Land Use and Building Act § 143: “If construction work is not started within three years… the building permit expires.”

Land Use and Building Act § 153: “A building… may not be taken into use before… the final inspection has been held.”

These are not subject to interpretation. These are mandatory laws.

The District Court rejected our claims. Reasoning: “The matter does not belong to the District Court, but to the administrative court.”

But the administrative court had already said: “We cannot reverse the final inspection because it is not an appealable decision.”

Evidence on the table. Confessions on tape. No legal remedy.

Before the trial, we had tried to get someone to correct the error.

12 authorities. Zero corrections.

The city rejected our complaint – by processing “construction quality”, even though we complained about the failure of official supervision.

The police did not investigate. “No reason to suspect a crime.”

The Chancellor of Justice refused to supervise.

Tukes admitted in writing that the law had been violated. Yet no one did anything.

“The Electrical Safety Act § 43 has been violated in the sense that the commissioning inspection and its report, which were required to be performed, have been done deficiently because the checked items do not correspond to reality.” — Ville Huurinainen, Senior Inspector, Tukes, January 13, 2023

In November 2023, something unexpected happened.

Together with our neighbors, we made an administrative complaint – five properties, same builder, same building control, same problems.

The Regional State Administrative Agency’s Development Manager Ulla Peltola took the matter under investigation. Our case was recent (final inspection 2020), but the neighbors’ events were older. Peltola noted that even in these cases there is a “special reason” to investigate. She sent the municipality an extensive request for clarification.

“In this case, however, circumstances have emerged that lead to the matter being processed and investigated through administrative complaint procedures.” — Ulla Peltola, Development Manager, AVI, November 20, 2023

Finally, someone took the matter seriously.

Then Peltola was removed from the investigation. Without notifying us.

In September 2024, the Regional State Administrative Agency issued its decision. New presenter. New line: “No special reason to investigate.”

Completely opposite to the previous decision. Without a proper explanation of why this was done. A vague claim was made that Peltola had exceeded her authority by starting the investigation. Peltola herself no longer answered questions.

Evidence. Confessions. Zero accountability.

Now we await the Court of Appeal’s decision.

But this is no longer just our story. This is a story about how the Finnish system works – or doesn’t work – when authorities make an error and refuse to correct it.

Everything is documented. Authorities have admitted errors in writing. Building inspectors have testified in court.

Yet no one is accountable.