Step 1 — Confirm which authority has jurisdiction
Permits are issued by the authority having jurisdiction (AHJ) over your property, which may be a city, village, township, county, or a state agency for certain trades. The mailing address on a property does not always match the permitting authority, so confirm the issuing department before you build a packet. If a property sits in an unincorporated area, the county building department usually reviews it; inside city limits, the municipal building department normally does.
- Check whether the parcel is inside city or village limits or in an unincorporated township area.
- Confirm whether electrical, mechanical, and plumbing permits are issued by the same office or separately.
- Ask whether a zoning or planning approval must clear before the building permit is accepted.
Step 2 — Classify the work correctly
Reviewers route submissions by work classification: new construction, addition, alteration, repair, demolition, change of occupancy, or a trade-only permit. Misclassifying the scope is one of the most common reasons a packet is rejected at intake, before a plan reviewer ever opens it. Write the scope of work in plain, specific language: what is being built or changed, the affected square footage, and whether structural, egress, or occupancy elements change.
Step 3 — Assemble the submission packet
Most building departments expect a recognizable set of documents. Exact requirements vary by authority and project type, but the core packet is remarkably consistent nationwide.
- Completed permit application with owner and contractor information.
- Written scope of work.
- Site plan showing property lines, setbacks, and the footprint of the work.
- Scaled construction drawings — floor plans, elevations, and sections as applicable.
- Structural details or engineering where loads, spans, or lateral systems change.
- Energy-code compliance documentation where required.
- Contractor license and insurance documentation.
- Any required zoning, historic, or homeowner-association approvals.
Step 4 — Submit and clear intake screening
Intake is a completeness check, not a technical review. A clerk confirms that the application is signed, the fee is paid, the drawings are legible and to scale, and every listed attachment is present. Packets that fail intake are usually returned the same week — which sounds fast, but it means your project has not yet entered the review queue at all.
Step 5 — Plan review
A plan reviewer compares your drawings against the adopted building, residential, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, energy, and fire codes, plus local zoning. Larger projects are routed to several disciplines in parallel. If anything is unclear, unsupported, or noncompliant, you receive a correction letter listing each comment. Each round of corrections restarts a portion of the review clock, which is why first-pass quality matters more than submission speed.
Step 6 — Issuance, inspections, and closeout
Once corrections are resolved, the permit is issued and fees are collected. Work then proceeds through scheduled inspections at defined milestones — typically footing, foundation, framing, rough trades, insulation, and final. A permit is not finished until the final inspection passes and, where applicable, a certificate of occupancy is issued. Open permits can complicate a future sale or refinance, so close them out.
How to avoid the most common correction letters
Most correction comments are not sophisticated code disputes — they are missing information. Dimensions that do not add up, a site plan without setbacks, no egress window called out on a bedroom, no header schedule, no energy compliance path, or a scope of work that contradicts the drawings. Running a pre-submission review against a completeness checklist catches the majority of these before a reviewer ever sees them.