Validate and route
The address is standardized and matched to the authority that issues permits there before anything is searched - a county authority for unincorporated territory, the city otherwise.
About
What PermitProof is, and who runs it.
PermitProof is a California permit-history lookup for insurance professionals. Enter a property address; it finds the authority that issues permits there and, where automated coverage exists, searches that authority’s official permit source and returns what it read, with a link back to the source beside each record. Where it cannot search, it says so, and says why where the reason is recorded.
How a search works
Three steps, and the third is the point.
Search the official source
Where automated coverage exists, the search is queued and run against the jurisdiction's official source, returning what it was able to read there with a link back to that source beside each record. An unfinished read is labeled incomplete alongside whatever it did read.
Report or explain
Where a search cannot establish something, the report says so in that row - it never fills a field in, and it never reports “no permits found” without certified evidence. Where no automated search runs, the report names the recorded barrier where the catalog holds one and links the official source where one is recorded.
What it covers
The numbers, counted from the catalog at render time.
- Permitting authorities cataloged
- 539
- Searched automatically
- 170
- Guides published
- 22
Cities and county authorities across 58 California counties, each with its own coverage page.
170 of them hold a passed live negative test on record, which is what licenses a published no-record result there.
How-to articles on reading permit records for insurance work.
A jurisdiction is counted as automated when its connector ships as live coverage or the certification ledger records a passing live acceptance test against the official source. The ledger behind these markers records passing acceptance tests dated between Jul 23, 2026 and Sep 2, 2026. A stored result from an identical search in the last 30 days may be reused - 7 days for a no-record result, one day for an incomplete read - and any other search runs live against the official source. A search that could not finish, or whose address could not be confirmed to the jurisdiction confidently enough, is labeled incomplete alongside whatever it did read - never presented as a completed permit history, and never as "no permits found".
For the other 369, the report says what happened instead - an uncertified automated attempt and what it found, a recorded barrier, or that no automated search is configured - and links the official source where the catalog holds one, rather than coming back empty.
What it does not do
The limits, stated plainly.
- Automated coverage is a statement about the connector, not a guarantee that a portal publishes every permit ever issued.
- A PermitProof report is not a title report, an inspection, an appraisal, or legal advice, and it is not an underwriting decision. It puts the public permit record and its official source link in front of a licensed professional, who makes those determinations.
- Permit records are based on available public sources as of the search date. The absence of an online permit does not establish that work was not completed. PermitProof does not verify construction quality, code compliance, insurability, underwriting eligibility, or coverage.
- Records are never bought from a data broker, and never invented, estimated, or inferred. A source that would require defeating a CAPTCHA, circumventing a login, or evading a rate limit is not automated at all.
Who operates it
One person.
PermitProof is built and operated by Sam Johnson, an account executive at an independent insurance agency in California. It is a single-operator product: there is no legal team, no sales team, and no office to list. Questions reach the operator through the contact page, or through the support form inside the application for account holders.
How it is paid for
Accounts, and an advertising library.
The free plan includes 3 property searches each calendar month (UTC); a search counts whether or not the jurisdiction can be searched automatically. PermitProof Access, the paid subscription, removes the limit. No CRM or AMS connection required. What an account includes, and what PermitProof Access costs, is stated on the pricing page.
This site loads the Google AdSense library on its public marketing pages, including this one. PermitProof configures no ad unit of its own, so this site places no advertisement on any page; Google may still place advertisements automatically on the pages that load the library, and the library loads and contacts Google either way. The privacy policy describes what loading that library means for cookies.