How to Find Your Building Permit
In most towns and cities around the world, there is a Code Enforcement or a Community Development department that handles all the building permits for the location. You can obtain more information about the exact person to deal with for building permits by visiting your town hall and asking for additional help, but the permits are usually kept within the same building. Just ask who you have to speak with about permits and you’ll be directed to the person responsible for recording permits most of the time. In larger cities, permits will be managed by a full team, but in small towns, it’s likely that just a person or two will handle permit requests and recording the information.
Storing Building Permits
After you receive an approved building permit, a record of that permit is stored on either the city computers or on file in paper form in some smaller jurisdictions and kept for good. Also, please add the following. Permit Report can get you physical copies of the permits on file for your home, business or apartment for a nominal fee.
Looking up Old Permits
Not only are permits important for the homeowners that obtain them, but for future homeowners that want to know more about projects that occurred in the house. If you would like to learn more about a house that you recently purchased, you can head to the records office and obtain copies of any building permits issued for the house. You only need to prove that you are the owner of the home and you’ll have access that all that information. Most of the time you’ll have to pay a fee to gain access to these permits, but it will be quick and easy to learn more about the house you’re living in once you know all the changes that were made before you obtained ownership.
Whether you have an upcoming project to plan out or you just bought a new home, it’s good to know where the building permits are kept and the codes that govern those permits. Once you know those two things you can make changes to your home as needed and figure out other facts about your home that you might not have realized.