Every Plano permit record, and what a gap in it means

Twenty-six kinds of work, each with the same verdict attached: what it means if you cannot find a permit for it. That is the question a permit history is actually being asked, and it has three possible answers.

2 leave no record to find. The work is exempt, or routinely done without a permit, and a blank line in the file is the expected result rather than a finding. Reading those as red flags is the most common mistake buyers make with a permit search.

13 leave a record that proves very little. A permit was pulled, the work was reviewed against whichever code cycle was in force, and the city visited at defined hold points — but on this kind of work there may be only one such visit, at the end, on the day the equipment was newest. A closed permit here is evidence that something was declared. It is weak evidence that it was done well.

11 are worth chasing. Structural, life-safety, or engineer-sealed work where a missing record is a genuine finding and a present one carries real information — an engineer’s seal in a foundation file, a pressure test on a gas line, a barrier inspection before a pool could be plastered.