Law Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for legal professionals, students, and others with experience or interest in law. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
If the government wishes to enter your house without a warrant and they ask your permission to do so, if you impose restrictions on what they can do or a part of the house they can or cannot enter, are they forced to comply with your restrictions or can they do whatever they like?
I would also be interested if your consent with restrictions was disregarded if that would be grounds to have the search deemed illegal.
They must comply with your restrictions, via the principle that consent can be withdrawn. One relevant Supreme Court case is Walter v. US 447 US 649, which declares that
When an official search is properly authorized—whether by consent or by the issuance of a valid warrant—the scope of the search is limited by the terms of its authorization
Likewise in Florida v. Jimeno, 500 U.S. 248,
A suspect may, of course, delimit as he chooses the scope of the search to which he consents.
In US v. Williams, No. 16-3547, 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 21304 (3d Cir.), the court elaborated that
a consensual search satisfies the mandates of the Constitution only if conducted within the boundaries of the consent given. This recognition establishes that it is the subject of a consensual search who decides the terms of the search.
and furthermore,
That a party may terminate a search by withdrawing his consent is a corollary of the recognition that the subject of a consensual search determines the parameters of that search.
Bear in mind that you have to be crystal clear on any limits on the scope of a search.
If this is more of a business call (the electrical inspector) and not a search, they don't have any special powers to enter your house. If the inspector enters your basement study without permission, that is trespassing, but you can't sue him because of that unless there was actual damage done. You can complain to his superior.
