Permit History: How to Look Yours Up

To look up the permit history of a house, first find out which building department has jurisdiction over the parcel, then search or request that office's records by address. Inside a city such as Claremont, that is the city's Building Division. On unincorporated Los Angeles County land it is LA County Public Works, through EPIC-LA. On unincorporated San Bernardino County land it is the county's Land Use Services Department, which takes permit research requests online. Compare what comes back with the house as it stands and with the assessor's record, and you will know which rooms are on paper and which are not.

This article is part of our unpermitted additions and converted garages hub. A permit history is the first document to pull when you suspect a garage, a patio room or a back house was never permitted, because every later decision depends on it.

Step 1: find out who holds the records

Your mailing address does not decide this. The jurisdiction line does, and in the Pomona Valley and the west end of San Bernardino County it runs in places people do not expect.

• Inside an incorporated city. The city's own building department issued the permits and keeps the file.
• Unincorporated Los Angeles County. LA County Public Works says that if your property is in unincorporated LA County, Public Works will issue your permit. Its Service Locator takes a street address or parcel number and tells you which office serves it.
• Unincorporated San Bernardino County. The county's Land Use Services Department handles building permits. San Antonio Heights, the historic subdivision north of the City of Upland, is one example: it has an Upland mailing address but sits under the county, as our Upland notes explain.
• Land that changed hands. Chino Hills incorporated in 1991, after developing as unincorporated county land. The Preserve, the former farm and dairy land in south Chino, was annexed to the city in July 2003. Rancho Cucamonga incorporated in 1977, taking in the original rancho and parts of the historic communities of Grapeland, Etiwanda and Alta Loma. For a house built or altered before the city took over, part of its history may still sit with the county.

Step 2: search or request the file

City of Claremont

Claremont's Building Division works from City Hall at 207 Harvard Avenue and lists (909) 399-5471 as its number. Its page links a Permit Status Inquiry for current permits and a "Search Archived Permits" archive for older ones. If the archive does not show what you need, call the division and ask what the file holds for the address. The city's own list of work that needs a building permit names garage conversions and accessory structures, so a converted garage in a post-war Claremont ranch tract should have a permit in that file if one was ever pulled. Our Claremont notes describe those housing eras.

Unincorporated Los Angeles County: EPIC-LA

EPIC-LA is Los Angeles County's online system for managing permits and inspections. The county's EPIC-LA permit helper asks for an address, and its map application lets you click the map or type an address "to obtain permitting history" for the parcel. For copies of older paper records, the county's own FAQ for the San Gabriel Valley district office in Arcadia says copies are available for a nominal fee and that requests must be made in person at the district office. Call the district office that the Service Locator names before you go, because practice varies by office.

Unincorporated San Bernardino County: Land Use Services

San Bernardino County runs permit research through Land Use Services:

• Recent applications. You can view and print permits and inspections for Building and Safety applications submitted after June 30, 2017, through the county's online citizen access portal.
• Older permits. Submit the Permit Research Application on the county's permit research page. For a full property search, or when the permit numbers are unknown on older permits, the owner must include a copy of the Assessor's Building Record, which the Assessor releases only to the owner on title or through the authentication its office allows.
• Cost and wait. The county lists no fee for an owner, or for someone holding the owner's signed letter of authorization; non-owners pay a small per-parcel fee. Requests are worked in the order received, and the county's FAQ states its own current wait, so start early if you have a sale in view.
• Very old houses. The same FAQ says building permits were not required in the county before Ordinance 574 took effect on June 1, 1946. A structure built earlier is exempt, but not once it was altered, added onto or changed in occupancy after that date.

Every other city

Ontario, Pomona, Upland, Rancho Cucamonga, Chino and the rest each keep their own records. Ask the city's building counter for the permit history of the address, and ask whether older files are on microfiche or in an archive that needs a separate request.

Step 3: read what comes back

A permit history is a list, not a verdict. Read each entry for four things:

What to checkWhy it mattersOn your house

Scope of each permit

A permit for a reroof says nothing about the room behind the garage door

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Status: issued, finaled or expired

A permit pulled and never finaled leaves the work off the record

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Date

A conversion built before January 1, 2020 is treated differently if it is ever legalized as an ADU

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Match with the house

Rooms, a back unit or an enclosed patio with no matching permit are the gap

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Then set the history next to the assessor's record of square footage and bedrooms, any old disclosure statement from when you bought, and any prior appraisal. Where all four agree, you have a clean file. Where the house is bigger than every record, you have found the unpermitted space.

Two cautions. An empty search is not proof that no permit exists: the San Bernardino County FAQ notes that old permit images can be illegible, and records from before an annexation may sit in a different office. And a finaled permit for a room proves the room was approved as built at that time, not that later changes were.

Do appraisers look for unpermitted work?

They compare the house to the record, and gaps are hard to miss. Fannie Mae's Selling Guide tells an appraiser who identifies an addition without the required permit to comment on the quality and appearance of the work and its impact, if any, on market value. A financed buyer's appraiser will usually not pull your permit file, but a two-car garage on the assessor's record with a bedroom where the door was tends to speak for itself. The full mechanism is in why appraisers cannot count unpermitted living area.

That is why pulling the history before you list is worth it. You learn what the buyer's lender will learn, before the escrow depends on it.

What the history changes about your options

• Everything is permitted and finaled. The space is legal living area. A listing usually reaches the full financed market and, for most houses in that position, nets more than an as-is cash sale.
• A permit was pulled but never finaled. Ask the department what it would take to reopen and final it. Sometimes that is the shortest route back to a clean record.
• No permit for a space that clearly needed one. You have three paths: legalize, list it disclosed, or sell as-is. Our guide to what unpermitted additions cost and how to decide lays them side by side, and legalizing a garage conversion as an ADU walks the permit route.

Whatever the history says, it belongs in your disclosure to the buyer. Civil Code section 1102.6 sets out the Transfer Disclosure Statement a seller fills in; see disclosing unpermitted work to a buyer. A question about code enforcement on a specific space goes to the building department, and a question about your own legal exposure goes to a real estate attorney.

Bring the history to the walkthrough

The permit history is one of the most useful papers a seller can hand over. After one walkthrough you get two written numbers on the same house. The as-is cash purchase offer, from a pool of thousands of local buyers and investors, prices any unpermitted space as it exists and writes that deduction on its own line. The open-market read, a preliminary estimate, not an appraisal, shows what a disclosed listing would likely net and, where it matters, a legalized house after the cost and time of legalizing. When listing nets more, the written recommendation says so. Neither number is an automated estimate, a CMA or a certified appraisal.

What this looks like in practice

These are the kinds of files that come in, described without names, addresses or figures.

• An Ontario tract house where the assessor's record showed a garage and the city file showed only a water heater permit, so the bedroom behind the old door opening was the unpermitted space.
• A San Antonio Heights house where the owner had been calling the City of Upland, and the records were with San Bernardino County all along.
• A Claremont ranch house with a family room permit that had been pulled and never finaled.

Next step

If you have pulled the history and found a gap, see how houses with unpermitted additions are handled, or call (909) 498-3977. There is no cost and no obligation to get the two numbers and the written report.

Sources

• City of Claremont, Building Division (contact, Permit Status Inquiry, Search Archived Permits): claremontca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• City of Claremont, When do I need a permit: claremontca.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• LA County Public Works, Building and Safety permits (unincorporated areas, EPIC-LA, Service Locator): permits.lacounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• LA County Public Works, EPIC-LA permit helper: pw.lacounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• LA County Public Works, EPIC-LA map application (permitting history by address): dpw.lacounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• LA County Public Works FAQ, copies of permit records from the Arcadia district office: pw.lacounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• San Bernardino County Land Use Services, Permit Research: lus.sbcounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• San Bernardino County Land Use Services, Steps to Obtaining Permit Research for Property Owners: lus.sbcounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• San Bernardino County Land Use Services, Permit Research FAQ (Ordinance 574, annexed areas, record images): lus.sbcounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• San Bernardino County Countywide Plan, San Antonio Heights: countywideplan.sbcounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• San Bernardino County, County history (Rancho Cucamonga incorporated 1977; Chino Hills incorporated 1991): main.sbcounty.gov, accessed November 6, 2026
• City of Chino, The Preserve (annexed July 2003): cityofchino.org, accessed November 6, 2026
• Fannie Mae Selling Guide B4-1.3-05, Improvements Section of the Appraisal Report: selling-guide.fanniemae.com, accessed November 6, 2026
• California Civil Code section 1102.6 (Transfer Disclosure Statement), copy read on california.public.law, accessed November 6, 2026
• California Government Code section 66311.7 (unpermitted ADUs built before January 1, 2020), copy read on california.public.law, accessed November 6, 2026

Permit, code and ADU questions are decided by the city or county building department. Cash offers come from independent buyers and investors who buy for their own account and may resell for profit; a cash offer is generally below what the open market would bring. Any value shown is a preliminary estimate, not an appraisal. Nothing here is legal, tax or financial advice.