Never fundamentally and regardless of the chosen option in house construction rely on your legal claim.
What legal claim? – I don’t see any here! There is a legal claim against the independent architect (for the builder who commissioned him personally) for an approvable design. A general contractor is regularly (e.g. as a master mason) entitled to submit documents for a single-family house but does not legally act as an architect (and also without the professional liability insurance required for such). Conclusion: if the building authority orders the demolition of the house because it does not comply with the zoning plan in the worst case, the builder’s claims for recourse will fail. By the way, this also applies to an independent architect who
the general contractor commissioned instead of the builder. Usually, the general contractor provides the “necessary architectural services” themselves, or the typical “rubber-stamp architect” is indeed an architect but senile.