Building permit guides
How permits work, from application to final inspection, with the official rules of major cities.
- How to get a building permitHow to get a building permit, step by step
- How much does a building permit cost?What a building permit costs
- Building permit application: what to submitWhat goes in a building permit application, what major cities ask you to submit for common projects, who can apply and where to apply online.
- How long does a building permit take?How long a building permit takes
- When does a building permit expire?When a building permit expires, how to extend it, and what the model code and major cities say about starting and finishing work, quoted from the source.
- Unpermitted work: what it means and what to doWhat unpermitted work is, what cities can do about it, how to check a property and how to get work permitted after the fact, from official sources.
- What happens if you build without a permit?What happens if you build without a permit
- Selling a house with unpermitted workSelling a house with unpermitted work
- How to legalize unpermitted workHow to legalize unpermitted work with an after-the-fact permit
- How to look up building permits for an addressHow to look up building permits for an address, what the records show, and the official permit search for each major city we cover, linked directly.
- Owner-builder permits: doing your own workWhen a homeowner can pull their own building permit and do their own work
- Building inspections: stages and schedulingBuilding permit inspections explained
- The final inspectionWhat the final building inspection checks, what to have ready, and what each major city issues after it passes, quoted from official sources.
- Certificate of occupancyWhat a certificate of occupancy is, when a home project needs one, what the model code says and how major cities issue certificates, from official sources.
- Zoning permit vs building permitThe difference between a zoning permit and a building permit, and the city rules where work exempt from a building permit still needs zoning approval.
- Work that does not need a permitWhich work does not need a building permit