Questions

What does Permity do

You give it a property address. It tells you when the roof, the furnace, the wiring and the plumbing were last permitted, and lists every permit it holds for that address. It is built for people pricing or underwriting a house, where the age of the roof changes the answer.

Does it find work that was never permitted

No, and nothing can. A permit record is a record of permits. A roof replaced without one leaves no trace here, and there is no way for us to distinguish that from a roof that was never replaced. This is the honest limit of every product built on permit data, ours included.

If a trade shows nothing, does that mean the work was never done

No. An empty cell means one of two opposite things: the work was never done, or it was done without a permit. We show which jurisdiction the address falls in and how far its records run, so you can tell an empty cell in a county we cover well from one in a county we barely cover. We will not guess between the two.

Is the date the work was finished

Usually not. Most jurisdictions publish the date a permit was issued or filed, not the date the work was completed or inspected. A permit filed in March 2012 may describe a roof finished that June, or one abandoned entirely. Every date in a report is labelled with which kind it is, and where a completion date exists we use that in preference.

Where do the permits come from

From the jurisdictions that issue them. We do not create permit records and we do not inspect properties: a report shows what the issuing authority has reported, and every permit in it is labelled with the authority that issued it. Where an authority has published nothing, the report says so rather than returning a blank that reads like a clean history.

Which places are covered

Colorado today, deepest along the Front Range, and where we hold a jurisdiction it usually goes back decades rather than years. Coverage is uneven by design: we would rather hold a city completely from 1990 than hold forty cities from 2019. Each report names its jurisdiction and the date its records run through.

How current is it

Each report shows the date that jurisdiction’s records run through, because the honest answer differs by place. Some jurisdictions publish daily and some publish a monthly report. A permit issued yesterday in a county that publishes monthly will not appear for weeks, and the report says so rather than implying today.

Can I buy a single report without an account

Yes. One report is $3.99, paid by card with an email address and no account. We check that we hold records for the address before taking payment, and if we cannot serve it the authorisation is released rather than charged. The report arrives by email as a PDF and stays available by link for 90 days.

What if there are no permits on the property

That is still an answer, and it is still a sale. Knowing a covered address has no roofing permit on record is exactly the finding an underwriter needs. What we will not do is charge for an address in a place we do not cover, which is why the coverage check runs before the payment.

Is there an API

Yes, and it returns the same answer as the web report. See the API documentation. Plans are on the pricing page.

Still deciding

Try it on a house you know, or ask us something this page did not answer.