How to look up a building permit in Richmond County, Georgia

CityView's status lookup asks for the permit number. If you do not have it, the property search will return every permit issued against an address, which is the faster route when you are researching a house you are buying.

Using CityView Portal specifically

Richmond County, Georgia uses the CityView portal. CityView is organised around a small set of actions — apply, pay, schedule an inspection, check status — presented as tiles on the landing page, so it is one of the easier portals to work through without help.

CityView sessions time out quickly while you are filling in a long application. Save a draft as soon as the form gives you the option rather than working straight through to the end.

Search by parcel number where you can

Street addresses are renumbered, re-suffixed and reassigned as areas develop, and a house standing for sixty years may have had three of them. Parcel numbers usually survive all of it, so a parcel search returns the complete history where an address search returns a partial one. Where address search is the only option, enter the house number and street name without the suffix — most systems match the string literally and fail on "Rd" against "Road".

Reading what comes back

• Issued — work is authorised and inspections are outstanding.
• Finaled or closed — passed final inspection. This is what you want to see on a property you are buying.
• Open — issued but never signed off. It transfers with the property.
• Expired — the validity window lapsed without inspection activity.
• Void or withdrawn — the application never became a permit.

If nothing comes back

Before concluding that work was unpermitted, rule out the likelier explanations. Records predating CityView Portal at this office are frequently not loaded. The work may sit with another agency — septic with the health department, driveways with public works, floodplain with the state. Or the property may be inside a city, in which case the municipality holds the record and Richmond County will show nothing at all. Ask the office to check the paper file before you draw a conclusion.

Our guide to looking up permits covers the records-request route where no online search exists.