The Cost of Building

The Mandarins in the New York City Department of Buildings have seen fit, in their limited wisdom, to raise the fines that apply to various DOB violations.

The reason they give for these increases is that the cost of construction in the city has become so high, that violation fines have become insignificant by comparison. Therefore, they say, builders and contractors don't see the existing fines as a deterrent for unsafe practices. For them, it's just another cost of doing business.

I expect that this will have unintended consequences. Every law, rule,tad and penalty ever imposed on us has had unintended consequences - or at least consequences that our duly elected and appointed overlords won't admit to intending.

There is an obvious idea in taxation: the more you tax something, the less of it you'll get. Tax policy depends on this idea. You want less carbon? Tax it more. You want less tobacco? Tax it more.

So too, if you want less construction, tax it more. I'm sure the DOB doesn't see it that way, but that's the way it is. It doesn't matter whether you call a forced payment to the government a tax or a penalty. Either way, you are increasing the cost of the thing.

In this case, that might have the unintended consequence of inhibiting construction, or at least, inhibiting requests for construction permits. Whether the intended consequence of increasing safety comes to pass is something we won't know for a long time.

For the raw information on the new fines, see https://rules.cityofnewyork.us/content/amendment-buildings-penalty-schedule-0.

The Gears of Justice Grind Slowly

Justice takes a long time. Swift justice is an oxymoron. We have become as accustomed to this truism as we have to traffic jams on the Long Island Expressway at two o'clock in the morning.

Sometimes the sloth-like pace of justice is the result of lawyers delaying things. Not always, but sometimes. Other times the culprit might be a judge who takes too long to render a decision, or a clerk's office that loses critical documents. I see all of that, every month.

Sometimes, however, it's not the fault of the court system or those of us connected to it. Sometimes it's family.

I was in Surrogate's Court this morning on a simple probate matter. A woman was smart enough to prepare a will before she died. It was a simple will. Nothing fancy. She left her stuff to a handful of relatives - but not all the relatives who would have benefited if she had no will.

So now we had relatives who felt no incentive to cooperate with the process, because, after all, what was in it for them? Must be nice to have family like that.

We had to deliver a "citation" to one of those relatives. A citation in a Surrogate's Court probate proceeding is simply formal notice that if you want to object to the will, or you have a problem with the executor, you must come to court at 9:30 in the morning on a date stated in the citation. If you don't show up, the court assumes you are OK with the proceeding moving ahead.

Court rules required that the citation be delivered in-hand. We sent a sheriff's deputy to the relative's home. He wouldn't open the door. Three times the deputy went, and three times he was rebuffed.

So now, thanks to this loving relative, the rest of the family must wait even longer for the decedent's simple will to be probated, and the family must spend more money to get a court order allowing service of the citation by alternate means.

Not my idea of family values.