Tell us about the property and the project

WHAT THE FREE ASSESSMENT IS

Ten minutes of record-checking beats a month of guessing.

Most permit situations arrive misdiagnosed. The scary expired permit turns out to need one twenty-minute inspection. The simple shed turns out to sit in a jurisdiction with a setback question. The remodel someone said needs no permit absolutely does. Guessing wrong in either direction costs real money, which is why every engagement with us starts the same way: we look before anyone commits to anything.

The free assessment is that look. You send the property address and a few sentences about the project or the problem. We pull the property record and its permit history, confirm whether the parcel answers to Sarasota County or the City of Sarasota, and identify what the situation actually requires. Then you get it all back in plain English, with a flat written fee if there is work worth hiring us for. It costs nothing, and it commits you to nothing, because the entire point is to find out where you stand before you spend.

WHAT TO PUT IN THE FORM

The address, the story, and how to reach you. That is genuinely all.

The property address matters most, because everything in permitting is parcel-specific, starting with which government reviews it. The story can be one sentence or ten: we are replacing the windows; the title company found two open permits and we close on the twentieth; the county sent a letter about the shed; I started an application myself and it has been in review for a month. Deadlines belong in the note, closing dates especially, because they change how we work the file. And tell us how you prefer to hear back, phone or email; both get the same answer.

What you do not need: permit numbers, portal logins, folder of documents, or the correct vocabulary. If we need a specific document later, we will ask for exactly that one thing. The form is short on purpose.

WHAT WE ACTUALLY CHECK

The same records a title company will eventually read, read early and on your side.

The assessment is records work, done in the systems where Sarasota's permit history actually lives. For a county parcel that means the Accela records: every permit issued for the address, its inspections, and its current status. For a city parcel it means the City of Sarasota's own permit records, which are a separate world with their own history. Where a project is planned, we check what the specific permit type requires in that specific jurisdiction. Where something is wrong, an open permit, an expired one, work with no permit at all, we establish exactly what the file says and what the issuing office would need to consider the matter closed. Where Florida's Notice of Commencement requirement will apply to upcoming work, we flag it now rather than let it fail your first inspection later.

None of this requires access to the property, and none of it alerts anyone. We read records; we do not file anything or contact the permitting offices about your property unless you later hire us to act, and then only as your representative on that defined scope.

WHAT YOU GET BACK

A plain-English rundown, a flat written fee, and sometimes a free do-it-yourself answer.

The reply, usually the same business day, has three parts. First, the situation as the record actually shows it, translated: what exists, what is open or missing, which office owns it, and what that means in consequences rather than jargon. Second, the plan: what resolving or permitting your situation involves, step by step, in the order the office will require. Third, the number: one flat service fee, in writing, for the defined scope, with government fees identified separately as pass-through costs, exactly as described on our pricing page.

And sometimes there is a fourth part, which is the one that builds trust: this is a ten-minute fix, here is how to do it yourself, no charge. A meaningful share of assessments end that way, on purpose. If your situation is simple, you deserve to know that for free, and we would rather be the people you call back when something genuinely tangled shows up.

THE NO-PRESSURE PROMISE

The assessment is the product. Hiring us is optional.

Nobody follows up your assessment with a phone campaign. You get the rundown, the plan, and the price, and then the next move is entirely yours: proceed, sit on it, do it yourself with what we told you, or get another opinion. The quote does not expire in some artificial 48-hour window, and asking questions about it costs nothing. Permit decisions often sit next to bigger ones, a sale, a renovation budget, an estate, and rushing you serves nobody. If you want to think, think. The record will still be there, and so will we.

IF YOU SAY YES

Then the checklist takes over, and your permit gets what every permit on our desk gets.

Saying yes starts the process the rest of this site describes. We prepare the application or the resolution paperwork completely, against the office's own checklist, and submit it through the correct portal. We watch the file every business day and translate anything that comes back into plain English and a next step. Corrections get answered fast, because correction cycles are where permits lose weeks. Inspections get scheduled at the right stages, failures get triaged the same day, and the Notice of Commencement gets recorded when your project requires one. And the file gets driven to the only finish line that counts: closed status in the official record, confirmed to you in writing.

From your side, the whole thing looks like short readable updates and the occasional specific request, a signature only you can provide, a document only you have, while your evenings stay yours. That is the trade the assessment offers: ten minutes of your information now, in exchange for knowing exactly where you stand, and the option of never touching a permit portal at all. The details of every specific service live on our services pages, and the communities we cover are on the service areas page.