Well, I heard back from the contractor. Officially, he cannot build the ramp, because there's no way to build a ramp in that space that conforms to the city regulations about wheelchair ramps. Unofficially, he's sending me some specs and quotes. (The city requires that all ramps, even ones within private homes, be built according to the standards that were written to allow for pretty much everyone to use the ramp, even in a really bulky wheelchair. So the city is requiring that the ramp be 60 inches wide, which is just not going to fit at all. What I actually need is 36 inches, and he's willing to build that, unofficially.)

I called my parents and told them about the ramp situation, and now my mom is freaking out and insisting that I contact like eight different people to ask their opinions.

She thinks that I could call my realtor and ask her. But the contractor was originally hired through the realtor, and he told me that, if he's going to do it without the city permits, then I'll need to hire him directly, rather than having him do it through the realtor -- that his response to the realtor will be that he can't do it. So I'm not sure if I'm supposed to talk about it with the realtor or not.

Any advice?

Go with the contractor that seems to understand your position. The only suggestion I have is that it should be easy to remove if you decide to sell sometime in the future

What Beth said—make sure it's fairly easy to remove (though I don't see how making a small ramp is LESS good than keeping stairs, when it comes to regulations but)

My mother also keeps telling me to do things because, "When we bought our house, we had to ..." and I have not yet responded, "You bought your house in 1985! Things have changed since then!" But I have been very tempted.

Thanks. So, do I talk to the realtor about this or not? Or do I ask the contractor if it's OK to talk to the realtor about it?

Hil, why do you want to talk to the realtor about it? To ask her if you should do it? You need the ramp or you can't live in the house. The ramp will be against code, so make sure it's removable if you ever sell it. If you want to quote shop, then you can ask her if she has other contractors she recommends, but I don't know that the realtor will add anything to the discussion that the contractor hasn't already told you. Theoretically, he is the the expert in city codes/building regulations.

I've learned to be selective in what I tell my parents these days. Things have changed and I don't have the spoons to deal with the well-meaning but outdated advice.

Thanks.

My parents are giving me a good amount of money toward buying the condo, so I feel like I need to keep them in the loop on things. My mom is the one who was insisting that I needed to talk to the realtor, but now I just got an email from her that's a lot less insistent about that.

Thank you for your advice, everyone. I think I'll wait to see what ramp design the contractor comes up with, and go from there.

The other option would be replacing the (awful) stairs that are currently there with better stairs -- maybe five shallow steps rather than the three steep ones that are there now, and putting in better railings. I'd be able to use stairs like that for now, but I'm not sure that I'd be able to forever. But that is something that's possible to do, if the ramp design doesn't work out. (And if I need it sometime in the future, it would probably be possible to install one of those vertical platform lifts there.)