If I am an investor and I wanted to look up open and closed permits on a Columbus Ohio property, how would it work? Do I need to ask listing agent or is this something I can find online? For example, I want to see how old the roof is or something. Thanks.

You can contact the department on this page https://www.columbus.gov/bzs/ If you give them the parcel number and they will get you all of the information you are asking for.

Just email them. They typically get back to you within 24 hours. That is what I do whenever clients ask. The auditor site is never up to date

Sorry, follow-up question.. What is it exactly that kills deals, and how frequently?

Curious, what is your take on prevalence of permits in Columbus? Is it more common than I would guess? I didn't realize the auditor site isnt up to date, if thats true then maybe a lot more permits pulled than I thought.

May just be my end of town (Linden) but not a whole lot of fancy-pants permit-pullin' goin on round these parts. Honestly only time I see really see permits pulled for flips is when its a land bank property and the city is basically sitting in the back seat the whole time watching you. As far as I know, all permits should appear on the auditor's page for a certain property. Just look up a property like normal and then look on the left side, about 1/3rd of the way down. There is also an extremely clunky BZS website that lets you look up permits but I've never figured out if I am using it correctly. And as Mr Lyman said you can always just call and ask, that's probably the most accurate.

I agree with @Remington Lyman. Permit work can cost more than un-permitted work that is up to code and can take longer since you have to wait for inspection. One plus to permit work is you can get tax abatement with it if you are in area that has it.

The cost of permitted work vs unpermitted work

@Jimmy Lieu @Trent Ecklar @Remington Lyman

@Jimmy Lieu whatever you are doing stop !! You need to connect with those doing deals, You are not ready to do them on your own . Just telling you want you need to hear not want. Good Luck

Admittedly, I don’t have much experience in how pulling or not pulling permits can affect a project. The items I have had pulled for in the limited number if projects I’ve done thus far were mainly hvac related, and those weren’t really adversely affected time-wise. For me, it seems like your contractor knowing they need to pull permits is also a good way to ensure they’re doing quality work. At least, on my last project, the contractors who did the most quality work were the ones who assumed it was a given they were pulling permits. The contractor who “assured” me he would order his guys to stop working and not talk to a city official if one showed up was also the one who skipped the job when he landed a bigger one.I know that’s not every situation, but to me, wouldn’t it just be better to have them pulled?