How do I lookup how many permits a licensed General Contractor filed in California?
I spoke with a General Contractor I hope to hire who is licensed in California. Is there some sort of website I can use to look up exactly how many permits they have filed in California? The website buildzoom.com shows around 15 permits they filed. However, this amount seems inaccurately low because they have been licensed for over 20 years. I figure they must have filed more than 15 permits in their 20+ year career?
Good question. I am not aware of any general state site that keeps track of that info. Permits are a local thing, per city or county. You'd probably have to check with the local planning/building depts where the contractor has worked, and see if they keep track of that info separately. In Los Angeles, I am not aware that information being easily accessible. I assume you have checked their references, or if not, call a few of their past and/or current clients.
You probably already went here, but in case not, here is the CA state license board, so you can check their license.
There is no way to check this. Each municipality issues their own permits, and some may have been completed as 'owner builder' with the GC only coming in later or on a fee basis to help the owner as a consultant. You could in theory find the info since it is publicly available, but it may literally mean manually requesting batches of permit numbers and dates etc to then filter for his license number.
