The Property Research Checklist for Large Jobs SOP

Purpose

A large job priced from the driveway is priced for the house the estimator can see. The house the jurisdiction, the recorder's office and the homeowners association see is often a different one: an easement under the spot picked for the generator, an expired permit on the panel you are about to tie into, a frost depth one county over from where the crew usually digs, a signer who does not own the house. Each of those surfaces after the customer has said yes, and each one costs a re-quote, a relocation or an argument about who pays. This procedure has the office pull the public record of the property before an estimate above the shop's large-job line goes out, and puts every answer in one block in the job file where the estimator, the installer and the permit tech all read the same thing.

Scope

Covers any estimate above the shop's large-job line. The default line is any estimate over 24 crew hours, or any job of any size that sets equipment in a new location, digs, or changes the exterior of the house. Tune the hours to your trade; keep the location, digging and exterior triggers regardless of size.

Does not cover:

• The flood, wildfire, wind and seismic lookups themselves. The Hazard Zone Check at Intake SOP owns those; this procedure runs it at step 6 and files its block, rather than repeating it.
• Keeping the local code editions and design numbers current. The Jurisdiction Profile SOP owns that; this procedure reads the profile and checks its date.
• How to read a plat, a survey or a permit history. The sibling how-to cards own the reading; this card owns when it is done and where the answer goes.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

1. Decide the job crosses the line and open the block. Read the request against the scope triggers and create the property block on the lead with the trigger that set it. Acceptance: the lead shows "property research: yes" with the trigger named (hours, new location, digging, exterior), or "no" with the reason. Wrong looks like a "simple swap" that moves the outdoor unit eight feet to clear a new deck, which is a new location. Stop rule: when the scope is unclear, open the block; the research runs about 45 minutes and a missed easement runs a day. Hazard: none at this step, it is a decision made at a desk.

2. Confirm the parcel and who owns it. Pull the assessor record: parcel number, recorded owner, year built, lot dimensions, assessed living area. Acceptance: parcel number recorded, and the recorded owner matches the person who will sign, or the block names who does (a spouse on title, the LLC's manager, the landlord). Wrong looks like an estate, a trust, a rental held by a company, or a buyer under contract who does not own the house yet. Stop rule: if the signer is not an owner and cannot show authority, the owner of the shop decides whether to price at all; nothing is scheduled on a tenant's signature for work that changes the building. Hazard: none, desk work.

3. Pull the permit history. Search the jurisdiction's permit portal by address and by parcel number, because older records are often filed under only one. Record every permit for the system you are touching and any permit that is open or expired without a final. Acceptance: a list with permit number, scope, status and date, or "portal returns nothing before" a stated year, which tells the estimator how far back the record actually goes. Wrong looks like an assessed living area larger than any permit explains, or a recent panel upgrade with no electrical permit. Stop rule: an open or expired permit on the system you are touching goes to the owner, because some departments will not issue your permit until the old one is closed. Hazard: none, desk work.

4. Pull the plat and any survey, and map the easements. Get the recorded plat from the county recorder and ask the customer for any survey from their closing. Record each easement's purpose, width and which lot line it runs along, and the platted building setbacks. Acceptance: every proposed equipment location, trench or footing on the job is marked inside or outside every easement and setback, with the distance, or the block says "plat shows none, no survey available". Wrong looks like a rear-yard location within the width of a utility or drainage strip, or a side yard narrower than the setback. Stop rule: any proposed location inside an easement is moved before the estimate is priced, not after; the utility's rights in its strip can require the owner to remove what you put there. Hazard: none, desk work.

5. Ask about the association and the zoning rules for equipment. Ask the customer whether the house is in a homeowners association and get the architectural review requirement in writing from the association, plus the zoning code's rules for mechanical equipment in yards (setbacks, screening, noise limits). Acceptance: "no HOA" confirmed by the customer and the recorded covenants search, or the review requirement and turnaround time recorded; zoning setback for equipment recorded with the code section. Wrong looks like a customer who says "no HOA" in a subdivision with recorded covenants and a front-yard equipment ban. Stop rule: where approval is required, the estimate states that installation waits for the written approval, and no equipment is ordered against it. Hazard: none, desk work.

6. File the hazard block and the design numbers. Run The Hazard Zone Check at Intake SOP and attach its block. Copy from the jurisdiction profile the frost line depth, the winter and summer design temperatures, the ground snow load and the design wind speed, with the profile's last-verified date. Acceptance: each value present with its source and a profile date inside 12 months. Wrong looks like the shop's home-county frost depth copied onto a job across the county line. Stop rule: a missing or stale profile means a call to the permit counter before the number is used, and the name of whoever answered goes in the block. Hazard: none, desk work.

7. Record the services and plan the locate. Record water source (public or well), waste (sewer or septic, from the county's septic records), fuel, and electric service size from the assessor or the customer's photo of the panel label. For any digging, note that the excavator files the one-call locate request with the notice period the state's one-call law sets, commonly two or three working days. Acceptance: each service named with its source, and a locate date planned that falls before the dig date. Wrong looks like a trench route across an unrecorded septic field. Stop rule: on a job that digs or drives a machine across the yard, an unlocated septic system or well is found and marked before the route is priced. Hazard: none at the desk; nobody digs on this job before the marks are down and the state's waiting period has run.

8. Confirm on site and close the block. The estimator walks each item that has a location: measures from the house or from a found survey marker to the proposed equipment spot and trench, photographs the panel label and the meter, and marks each block line "site-verified" or "desk only". Acceptance: every location line carries a measured distance and a photo, and no line is left blank. Wrong looks like a measurement taken from a fence the customer calls the property line, which is often not where the line is. Stop rule: any measured distance that puts the work closer than 2 ft to an easement edge, setback line or lot line goes back to step 4 with the survey question, because a tape from a fence is not a survey. Hazard: stay on the customer's lot unless the neighbor has given permission, and never lift a septic tank lid or a well cap to look; an open tank is a fall and toxic-gas hazard, and an open well cap is a contamination path.

The record this produces

One property block on the lead, carried into the job on acceptance. The estimator prices from it, the permit tech fills the application from it, and the installer reads it before the truck is loaded so the crew digs to the right depth in the right spot. A year later, when a letter arrives from an association or a utility, it is the record of what the shop looked up, when, and who told it what.

Worked pass

A heat pump replacement with the outdoor unit relocated, plus a new standby generator, estimated at 31 crew hours. The trigger was hours, new location and digging, all three.

PROPERTY BLOCK         lead 4417   opened 10/02  RA
parcel     14-208-031  owner on title: J and M Ostrow
           signer: M Ostrow (on title)        PASS
permits    2009 furnace  final
           2019 basement finish  EXPIRED, no final
           electrical: none since 1994
           -> owner call 10/02, see note       FAIL
plat       10 ft utility easement, rear line
           side setback 7.5 ft (plat)
           gen pad proposed 6 ft off rear line
           -> inside easement, moved           FAIL
HOA        yes, review required, 21 days
zoning     equip. side yard min 5 ft, sec. 11.4
design     frost 42 in, winter 2 F, summer 90 F
           profile verified 06/18
services   public water, sewer, gas, 200 A
locate     dig 10/27, request by 10/22
site       gen pad 14 ft off rear line, photo 3
           HP pad 6.5 ft off side line, photo 4

• Steps 1 and 2 pass. The signer was on title.
• Step 3 fails and takes its stop rule. A 2019 basement finish permit had expired with no final inspection. The office routed it to the owner, who called the department; the department would issue the new mechanical and electrical permits but wanted the basement permit reopened by the homeowner. The estimate went out with that condition written in.
• Step 4 fails and takes its stop rule. The plat showed a 10 ft utility easement along the rear line, and the proposed generator pad sat 6 ft off that line, so 10 minus 6 put the pad 4 ft inside the strip. The location was moved before pricing to 14 ft off the rear line, 4 ft clear of the easement edge, which also kept the pad at the manufacturer's listed clearance from the nearest window; the gas run grew by about 9 ft and the price carried it.
• Step 5: the association required review with a 21-day turnaround, so the install date was set after approval and equipment was not ordered until the letter came.
• Step 6: frost line 42 in from a profile verified in June, inside 12 months, so the pad's footing detail was drawn to it.
• Step 8: the estimator measured the heat pump pad at 6.5 ft off the side line. The plat's 7.5 ft setback governs buildings; the zoning code's equipment rule, section 11.4 of this jurisdiction's code, allows equipment at 5 ft, so 6.5 minus 5 left 1.5 ft of margin, under the step's 2 ft rule. It went back to step 4: the customer produced the closing survey, the line was confirmed from its markers, and the location held.

References

• The jurisdiction's permit portal, the county assessor and recorder, and the state one-call law for the locate notice period.
• See related: The Hazard Zone Check at Intake SOP; The Jurisdiction Profile SOP; How to Read a Plat and a Survey; How to Pull a Permit History Before You Trust the House; Property Lines, Easements and Where Equipment Can Go.