How to look up a building permit

Permit records are public in every state. The difficulty is never permission — it is that every jurisdiction publishes them differently, and roughly a third do not publish them online at all. Here is the method that works regardless.

Step one: identify the jurisdiction, not the address

This is where most searches fail before they start. A property with a city mailing address is not necessarily inside that city. Postal routes and municipal boundaries are drawn independently and frequently disagree. If the property is in unincorporated territory, the county holds the records; if it is inside city limits, the city does, and searching the county database will return nothing at all.

The definitive check is the county parcel or GIS viewer. Look the property up by address, and the record will name the jurisdiction.

Step two: get the parcel number

Search by parcel number wherever the option exists. Street addresses are renumbered, re-suffixed and reassigned as areas develop, and a property that has been standing for sixty years may have had three addresses. The parcel number usually survives all of it, so a parcel search returns the complete history where an address search returns a partial one.

Step three: search, and search loosely

Most permit portals match address strings literally. "1425 Oak Rd" will not find a record filed as "1425 Oak Road". Enter the house number and the street name only — drop the suffix, drop the unit, drop the direction prefix if the system lets you. Widen first, narrow afterwards.

Reading the statuses

• Applied or in review — submitted, not yet authorised. Work should not have started.
• Issued — work is authorised. Inspections are outstanding.
• Finaled, closed or completed — passed final inspection. This is what you want to see on a property you are buying.
• Open — issued but never signed off. It transfers with the property and becomes the new owner's problem.
• Expired — the validity window lapsed without inspection activity.
• Void, withdrawn or cancelled — the application never became a permit.

When nothing comes back

Before concluding that work was unpermitted, rule out the far more common explanations. Records predating the jurisdiction's current system are frequently not loaded — digitisation cut-offs in the 1990s and 2000s are normal. The work may have been permitted by a different agency: septic by the health department, driveways by public works, wells and floodplain by the state. Or the property may simply be under a different jurisdiction than you assumed.

Ask the office to check the paper file. Most will, and permit records being public means this is a routine request rather than a favour.

Requesting records formally

Where no online search exists, make a public records request. Address it to the building department, give the property address and parcel number, and ask for the permit history including inspection records and any certificate of occupancy. Response times are set by state law and are usually measured in days rather than weeks.