Before you send a bid, read the parcel
A building's public record is not a substitute for walking the site — nothing here replaces that. But before a bid goes out is the cheapest moment to know what the city already has on file: what is permitted, what is still open, and what an inspector already flagged. Finding it after you have started work costs more than finding it before you priced the job.
What is already open on this parcel
Every filed permit — building, electrical, plumbing — is keyed to the same block and lot, and the report separates what is still open from what closed out. An open permit from a previous contractor is not your obligation until you take the job, and then it often becomes exactly that: a re-inspection or a corrective step folded into a project that was supposed to be simpler.
What an inspector already found
Fire and building inspectors file their findings as public notices of violation, and they sort by trade more cleanly than most people expect: a violation coded for a sprinkler or standpipe system is a different job from one coded for an alarm or an exit sign, and the report keeps them separate rather than lumping every fire-code citation into one count. The same is true on the building side — a notice for a rodent or cockroach infestation is a pest job, not a general sanitation citation about trash.
- Fire-suppression violations — sprinkler and standpipe systems specifically, split out from alarms and exits.
- Pest and infestation notices — rodent, cockroach and bedbug citations, split out from general sanitation.
- Every other notice of violation on the parcel, whatever trade it touches, with its date and status.
The obligation that outlasts a sale: soft-story retrofit
San Francisco's mandatory seismic retrofit program covers a specific building type — typically ground-floor parking or open commercial space under several stories of housing — and a building on the list that has not completed its retrofit carries a standing obligation, not a suggestion. The report says whether a parcel is on the program and whether it has finished.
Reading it against the job, not instead of the site visit
- Run the address before you quote. Three minutes now, against however long an unpleasant surprise costs later.
- Check for open permits in your own trade first — an open electrical or plumbing permit from a prior contractor is the closest thing to a direct warning the record gives.
- Read the violation list for your trade specifically. A citation coded to your system is a customer who already has an inspector's attention on the exact thing you are bidding to fix.
- Still walk the site. A filed record describes paperwork, not the condition behind a wall.
What this cannot tell you
- It is not an inspection. A clean record means nothing was filed — not that nothing is wrong.
- It does not name who to call. No owner or manager is identified anywhere in this product, by design; the report describes the building and its filings, never a person.
- A quiet record on a busy block is still a fact about the block, not the building. The comparison against nearby buildings the same size is on the report for exactly this reason — use it.