When i was writing the article, I checked around some RE forums to see what home inspectors had to say about finding and reporting code violations.  From what I gathered, most do not as a matter of course.  According to The Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics of The American Society of Home Inspectors, "inspectors are NOT required to determine compliance with regulatory requirements (codes, regulations, laws, ordinances, etc.)". 

I really sympathize with the borrowers here.  Pending code violation notices, whether they are matters of title or not, are something that should be easily discovered by a buyer during a normal sale without extra effort on their part. Whether that means that the code violation notices should be filed at the courthouse so that they can be found during a title search, or that a separate code compliance certification of some sort should be a prerequisite of a sale, or whether the burden to discover code violations should fall on home inspectors, I'm not sure, but my opinion is that the buyer shouldn't have to rely on the seller's honesty or competence to get notice of pending violations.   If not, unscrupulous homeowners can just quickly sell their properties when they receive notice of a serious code violation.