Our village (here in the USA) is pretty strict about the inspections. Each deck has to have 3 inspections (holes, framing, final).

If you build without a permit, the village will not allow you to sell the house (each sale has to have a village inspection) until you _tear down_ and redo the work with a permit.

So it's a lot more controlled than other places and they can enforce it by tying up the sale.