A building permit lookup built into the sales pipeline for post-frame, pole barn and barndominium work. Type a street address, a town or a county — or type nothing: leads with a town or county on file are checked when the board opens. Type the street address and it works out from the official boundary lines whether the town or the county governs, then shows whether a permit is required, the fee, the typical cost, the review time, the farm exemption, whether you need stamped plans, and the department's phone number. The answer is frozen onto the deal with who checked it and when, and a chip on the pipeline card names the office. Where we hold no verified rule it says so, and it never invents a no.
Also called: building permit lookup · pole barn permit requirements · do I need a permit for a pole barn · permit check · county permit rules · barndominium permit
Checked on every lead, before anyone asks
Open the board and every deal that arrived with an address and no check yet gets one. The town, county and state on the contact are matched against rules we already hold, so there is no cost per card and no waiting on a map. Deals outside our coverage are skipped rather than answered wrongly.
The permit step gets skipped on a busy Monday, and the surprise bill turns up after the quote went out — far too late to work as a reminder.
Nothing bad happens today when a rep skips the check, so a check that waits to be asked for mostly never runs. This one is already done by the time anyone opens the card.
A street address, a town, or just a county
One box takes whatever the lead gave you. Towns come first, then counties, and counties we already hold verified rules for are ticked. Only know the area? The state, county and town pickers walk you down to the office that actually decides — there is no statewide permit for a post-frame building.
Half the leads arrive as 'somewhere out past the highway', and a lookup that only takes a street address never gets run on them.
A rep almost never has the same information twice, so every way in leads to the same answer.
The line decides whether the town or the county governs
The parcel is matched against the official boundary, not a name that looks close. Inside a town, the town's rule wins; outside every town, the county answers — and when a town governs, the county rule still shows underneath. The map draws town, county and state lines in their own colours, and you can click any jurisdiction on it for its rule.
A builder quoted the county fee on a job that turned out to be three blocks inside the town line — different office, different fee, different review time.
Plenty of towns share a name with the county around them, so matching on names is not good enough. The line itself decides.
One card: required, the fee, the exemption, the stamp, the phone
A green, amber or red header says whether a permit is required, conditional or not required. Under it: the typical cost, the farm and ag exemption and what it depends on, whether you need engineered stamped plans, the fee detail, the review time, the department and its phone. A confidence badge sits beside the name and every claim links back to the page it was read from.
The same pile of facts otherwise takes a morning of calls — one office for the fee, another for the exemption, a third for the plans.
Linking every line to its source means the answer can be checked rather than trusted.
The answer you priced on stays on the deal
Each lookup is kept with the address, the parcel, who governed, who ran it and when, and the whole answer exactly as it appeared. Re-open the deal and you get that answer replayed, not a fresh one — and the panel fills itself from the contact, so nobody retypes the address.
A county changed its rule between the quote and the build, and the builder had no way to show what the answer was on the day he priced it.
The rule can move next month; the record of what you knew when you quoted should not.
No data means 'call the office', never 'no permit'
Where we hold no verified rule, the panel names the jurisdiction and hands you the office to phone. A pin only drops on a real rooftop match — an approximate location gets no pin at all. And every permit screen carries the same line: confirm with the local authority before you quote.
A wrong 'no permit' is worse than no answer: it is the exact failure that leaves a builder holding a bill he never priced.
A gap in coverage is painted as loudly as a red answer, because silence would read as a green light.
- 1Leads with a town or county on file are checked when the board opens — the card reads Permit required · Boone County before anyone opens the deal.
- 2Open the deal and the permit panel is already answered. Or search by street address, town or county, or walk down the state, county and town pickers.
- 3Type the street address for an answer matched to the boundary line: inside a town the town's rule wins, outside every town the county answers.
- 4Read one card: required or not, fee, typical cost, review time, farm exemption, stamped plans, the office and its phone — and a link to every source.
- 5The answer is kept on the deal as it was on the day you priced it, with the name of whoever checked it.
- 6Where coverage is thin the card says call the office and hands you the number, and every screen carries the same line: confirm with the local authority before you quote.
The permit bill that hurts is the one that turns up after the price is already in the customer's hands. A crew quoted a pole barn on the assumption there was no permit out there. There was, and the builder ate it to keep the job. Nobody was lazy: the answer lives in three different offices, it changes across a town line you cannot see from a street address, and assembling it takes a morning of phone calls — so on a busy board the check gets skipped. The check nobody asked for is the valuable one, so it now runs on every lead that gives you an address, and the answer sits on the deal before the price does. It is decision support, never a determination: it tells you who to ring and what to ask.
- Quotes going out before anyone knows whether a permit is required or what it costs
- Pricing the county's fee on a build that sits inside a town line
- No record of what the permit answer was on the day the job was priced
- Reps skipping the permit step because it is one more click on a busy board
Permit check on the deal
A panel inside the deal. Type the property address and it works out whether the city or the county rules apply. Then it shows whether a permit is required, the fee, the typical cost, how long review takes, whether a farm exemption applies, and whether you need stamped plans. The office to call and its phone number sit right there, next to a map with the city, county and state lines drawn on it.
Search by address, town or county
Start typing and the box offers towns first, then counties. Counties we already hold verified rules for are ticked, so you know what you are getting before you search. If all you have is a street address off a lead form, pick Search address and it finds the exact parcel.
State, county and town pickers
Pick a state and its border draws, with the counties listed. Pick a county and you get its rule plus the towns inside it. Counties with verified rules are ticked. One Reset clears the search, the answer, the borders and the pin.
Jurisdiction lines on the map
The actual lines, not a rough circle. The map zooms to the tightest line that matters — the town if there is one, otherwise the county — and caps the zoom so a small village outline does not swallow the screen. You can see the parcel sitting inside or outside the line that changes the answer.
Town rule or county rule
The parcel is matched against the official boundaries, not a place name. If it falls inside a town, the town's rule wins. If it does not, the county rule answers. When a town governs, the county rule still shows underneath as context that also applies.
The permit answer
A green, amber or red header says whether a permit is required, conditional or not required for this structure. Under it: typical cost for a 40×60 build, the farm and ag exemption and what it depends on, whether engineered stamped plans are needed, the fee detail, review time, the department, its phone and its official site. A confidence badge sits beside the name, and every claim links back to the page it was read from.
No data yet — call the office
A warning card in place of an answer. It names the jurisdiction you looked up and tells you to call the local building or zoning office. It says the dangerous part out loud: never assume no permit.
The answer is frozen onto the deal
Each check is stored with the address you typed, the parcel it landed on, which jurisdiction governed, who ran it and when, and the whole answer exactly as it appeared. Re-open the deal and you get that answer replayed, not a fresh one. The county can change its rule next month; the record of what you knew when you quoted does not move.
Automatic permit check on every lead
Open the board and every deal with an address and no check yet gets one. The town, state and county on the contact are matched against rules we already hold, so nothing is paid for and nothing waits on a map service. Deals outside our coverage are skipped rather than answered wrongly.
Permit chip on the pipeline card
Green when no permit is needed, amber when it is conditional, red when it is required, and a neutral call office where we hold nothing. The chip names who governs, not just what the answer is.
The panel fills itself from the contact
Type nothing. If the check was already run, you get that exact answer replayed. If it was not, the contact's street, town, state and zip place the parcel and the check runs itself. A state on its own is refused — it would pin a random field in the middle of nowhere.
Only pin a location you can trust
Map services always hand back something. For an address they cannot find, they quietly fall back to a similar road, the zip, or the middle of town. Those are thrown away and no pin is drawn. The borders and the rule still show, because those came from the boundary, not the pin.
Every town in the county, each its own colour
Up to two dozen towns draw around the county, each in a distinct colour and listed as clickable chips beside the map. Click a chip and you get that town's permitting. It shows at a glance which towns in the county run their own rules and which do not.
Click a jurisdiction for its rule
Once the lines are drawn, the map is the index. Click inside a town and you get the town. Click county land outside every town and you get the county — because that is who governs there. The same answer card opens, with the same confirm with the authority line under it.
Map, text, or both
Map, Both, or Text. Drag the divider to resize. Drag it past the edge and it snaps to one column, with a tab to bring the other back. The map is capped and sticky, so it stays in view while a long rule scrolls past. On a phone the two stack.
Strip the map back to the lines
Three presets. All is the normal map. Roads drops business pins and transit. Borders drops the roads too, leaving land, water and place names under the coloured outlines. The choice sticks.
Decision support, never a determination
A footer on the panel, repeated inside every jurisdiction pop-up. It rides alongside the confidence badge and, on any rule nobody has phoned through, a bold Call to confirm before quoting strip carrying the number.
Verified county permit data
Every rule carries a confidence grade, whether it still needs a phone call to confirm, and the date it was last verified. Counties inside the build radius are worked through nearest first, and the picker ticks the ones already done. A weak rule is never dressed up as a strong one — it pushes a phone number instead.
Automatic Permit Check on the Deal
A permit badge on the card carrying the answer from the last lookup, plus a full panel inside the card with the rule behind it. The badge reads No permit needed · Boone County, Permit: confirm · Columbia, or Permit required · Columbia. A card with no answer yet reads Permit: call office. The answer freezes once it's taken, because that's what your quote was built on.
