The open permit found at closing.

The Cove has been changing hands since the 1960s, and six decades of owners leave a paper trail. Canal houses off the Intracoastal have been re-roofed, re-glazed, repiped, screened in and added to, sometimes on a permit and sometimes over a quiet long weekend. Deer Creek, Coquina Lakes and Villages of Hillsboro carry the same history in a shorter span: pool cages, carport enclosures, panel upgrades, a water heater that moved rooms. None of it evaporates. An unfinished permit stays attached to the address until somebody finishes it, and most owners meet theirs with a buyer already under contract.

Deerfield Beach is its own municipality, so permits are filed with the city's Building Division on NE 2nd Avenue and move through the GeoCivix portal, while ePermitsOneStop carries the Broward County pieces that ride alongside: asbestos notification before demolition, environmental review, the notice of commencement. Above the city sits the county Board of Rules and Appeals, the layer every Broward building department answers to, which maintains Broward's amendments to the Florida Building Code and certifies the plans examiners and inspectors who will judge your job. Broward is High-Velocity Hurricane Zone territory, so glass, doors and roofing need approved products documented in the file.

There is a difference between running paperwork and being able to build whatever the file is missing, and it usually decides how this goes. Old permits close when the work behind them is finished: a failed component replaced, a wall opened so an inspector can see the framing, an engineer's letter written for something long since covered. We read the permit history first and tell you which of the three you are facing, in writing, before you spend anything. Our supervisor is at the house when the inspector pulls up. 20-plus years in South Florida, more than 150 remodels and additions delivered, all of them permitted and inspected. Lic. CGC1539072.