Did you know that you can view permits online for Los Gatos properties? Go to the Town’s website and look under the Building Division for the link, or click through this link to get there a little faster. You’ll just need a few things to start your search and the list of permits can be seen on the next screen.
Not every city or town in Silicon Valley has this digitized, though most do now. San Jose’s can be accessed via SJPermits.org. You don’t need to register or provide any information to check out the permits. Property records are part of the public domain.
Why view permits online?
If you are a homeowner, it’s a good idea to check this site to make sure that work you’ve done with permits and finals is reflected there. If you have permits and finals for work and it’s not showing up online, contact the building department to see how you can get the records corrected. Normally the originals would be brought to the department for viewing. A photo or pdf may suffice, though, so please contact the building department directly to see. (A lot of procedures have changed with Covid.)
It’s also wise to make sure that someone else’s work was not inaccurately attributed to your home. A few years back we saw a re-roof ascribed to our house that didn’t belong – it was probably a neighbor with a slightly different house number. One quick call to the town’s building department and it was corrected.
If you are a Los Gatos home buyer or a real estate agent, it’s a helpful tool to view permits online to get a sense of what permitted improvements have been made and when. It is possible that items not on the town’s site are permitted even if not listed, but it would be good to investigate. This is especially true if someone added square footage to the living area and it’s not showing as permitted in the county’s living space records. It could be an insurance liability.
The new site, or revamp of the old one, is now in kind of a gray-blue color (the old was green and yellow).
Related reading:
Los Gatos homes: class and land use
What do you need to know before buying a home in Los Gatos?
