The bid looks fair, the crew seems capable, and the contractor says he will “take care of all the paperwork.” Before a single wall in your Dallas house comes down, there is a five-minute check that tells you whether that last part is true: look the job up yourself in the city’s permit system.
Dallas runs its permitting, plan review and inspections through an online platform called DallasNow, and the records in it are public. That means a homeowner can see whether a permit was actually pulled for their address, who pulled it, and whether the required inspections happened. Here is why that matters, and exactly how to check.
Why unpermitted work becomes your problem, not theirs
Permits are not red tape for its own sake. The permit is what triggers city inspections, and inspections are the only independent check that the electrical, plumbing, structural and mechanical work behind your new drywall meets code. Skip the permit and nobody ever looks.
The costs land later, and they land on the homeowner. Unpermitted work can surface when you sell the house and the buyer’s inspector starts asking questions. It can complicate an insurance claim after a fire or a slab leak. And if the city discovers it, you can end up paying to open walls, redo work and permit it after the fact. The contractor who cut the corner is usually long gone by then. Whatever a contract says, the property owner is the one attached to the address.
Where to look: the DallasNow portal
The city’s DallasNow information hub explains the system, and the portal itself lives at the DallasNow citizen-access site. DallasNow replaced a patchwork of older systems and now handles permitting, planning, platting, inspections and engineering in one place, with records viewable online around the clock.
You do not need to be a contractor to use the search. Enter your street address and the system returns the records tied to it: permit applications, their status, and inspection results. You can also search a record number if your contractor gave you one, which is itself a good early test. A legitimate contractor can hand you the permit number without hesitation.
If the website fights you, there are humans. The Development Services call center is at 214-948-4480, and the department runs self-serve stations at the Oak Cliff Municipal Center, 320 E. Jefferson Blvd., where staff can help you find records in person.
What to check once you find the record
1. A permit exists for the actual scope of work. A permit for a water-heater swap does not cover a bathroom gut job. Read the description and make sure it matches what is happening at your house.
2. It was issued, not just applied for. An application sitting in review is not permission to build. Work should not start until the permit is issued.
3. Inspections are being scheduled and passed. Jobs of any size involve stage inspections before things get covered up. If your renovation is at drywall and the record shows no inspections, that is a conversation to have today, not at final payment. Contractors schedule inspections through the portal or through the department’s automated phone line at 214-670-5313.
4. The permit holder matches your contractor. Watch for a permit pulled as “homeowner” when you did not pull it. Some operators ask owners to permit the job themselves, which shifts responsibility for code compliance onto you.
Check the license too, where licenses exist
Texas does not license general contractors statewide, which surprises a lot of people. Anyone with a truck and business cards can call themselves a remodeler. But the trades that most often burn homeowners are state-licensed: electricians and air-conditioning contractors are licensed through the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, and you can verify a license in seconds with TDLR’s license search. Plumbers are licensed separately by the Texas State Board of Plumbing Examiners. If a sub is doing electrical, mechanical or plumbing work on your project, their license and the permit should both check out.
What to do if something is off
If work is underway at your address with no permit in the system, stop and ask the contractor directly; sometimes a permit was pulled under a different record type and there is an innocent answer. If the answer is vague, call Development Services at 214-948-4480 and ask what the job requires. For work you suspect is proceeding without permits, whether at your house or next door, you can report it to the city through Dallas 311.
None of this requires confrontation up front. Put it in the contract instead: contractor obtains all required permits, permit numbers provided before work begins, final payment after final inspection passes. A professional will not blink at any of that. The ones who do are telling you something, and it is better to hear it before the demolition starts than after.
This article was produced with AI assistance and reviewed by a human editor. Figures are linked to their primary sources; where a claim could not be verified from the public record, we say so.
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