I am trying to pull past permits to see work that was done for properties located in Memphis, TN, but am unsure where to find these. Some cities have offices you physically go to and others you can look up online. Does anyone know if I can pull permits for past work online and if so where? 

There is a way under the Shelby County assessors' office, but it is byzantine at best.  I think it is the assessors' office.  Difficult to find and even more difficult to understand if you don't know what you are looking at.  It is also not specific as to exactly what the permits were pulled for so it is difficult.  I don't have the exact website, but will research again all the paths we took to get to see actual permits and shoot it to you.  It has been a while.

https://www.assessor.shelby.tn.us/content.aspx?key...

@Jack Inman thank you!

@Chris Clothier thanks so much. When you start doing due diligence on potential properties to purchase do you pull permits to know what to replace or do you replace everything new just to make things easier than pulling and sifting through all the permits online? I’d like to get a grasp on how to best determine this for myself on future properties.

Originally posted by @Codi Clausen :

@Chris Clothier thanks so much. When you start doing due diligence on potential properties to purchase do you pull permits to know what to replace or do you replace everything new just to make things easier than pulling and sifting through all the permits online? I’d like to get a grasp on how to best determine this for myself on future properties.

When we review a property, we have licensed contractors tell us what needs to be replaced and they pull the appropriate permits for those items.  The history is less relevant than the future work we will do.  I would not spend any time seeing if a permit has been pulled.  Instead have a property reviewed by a professional, preferably 3rd party, who can tell you what work needs to be done and what work will require permitting.   The permits will simply become a line item in your budget for repairs.