As I write this article early Tuesday morning, torrential rains from Tropical Storm Nicholas are still pounding in some parts of Houston and the surrounding areas, homes have flooded, trees have blown down punching holes in rooftops and hundreds of thousands of homeowners are without power. After hurricanes and storms like Nicholas wreak havoc, homeowners that suffered damage to their properties are often left wondering how to make repairs or worse the rebuild. We live, work, and play in…

There are too many times to count where PermitUsNow team members have answered the company’s 1.844.PERMIT.4 line and the voice on the other side says, “I am having problems getting a permit.” We ask the caller basic questions like the scope of work, location, type of use, and their City Permitting project number. The caller rattles off the scope, physical address and then indicates the use of the building. “What was this prior use of property”, we ask the caller. “It was a…

Hundreds of thousands of people in Louisiana that were in the path of Hurricane Ida have either hunkered down or traveled to a safe place as I write this article. Living along the Gulf of Mexico has its benefits from great fishing to good food, and a culture like no other, but it also has a big risk. And that risk is hurricanes. As I native and resident of Houston, Texas, I understand this natural challenge like my neighbors in Louisiana. In fact, you can still see blue tarps on…

Picture this: you sip your favorite cup of coffee, log into jurisdiction permitting e-portal to check the status of your plan reviews then you take a double-look at the screen, and then shake your head wondering why you have received multiple pages of rejection comments from Plan Reviewers. What the heck is going on and what are they doing with your project? Your project is straightforward and there’s just gotta be something wrong with the Plan Reviewers. Right? We get it and have heard…

Have you submitted a perfect construction permit set before to a jurisdiction and it goes through every departmental review racking up every imaginable rejection comment? You scratch your head, begin to fume, and next release a mouth-full of complaints to the City Plan Reviewers and then worry how much delays in permitting will cost you. With the increase in lumber prices, pressures from the lingering 2020 pandemic, long lead items, and unusually longer plan review times at jurisdictions…