Building Permit Glossary for Commercial Projects

Building permit: Municipal authorization for regulated construction, alteration, repair, demolition, or other work that requires a permit.

Permit application: The forms, plans, project information, and supporting documents submitted to request a permit.

Permit intake: The early administrative review used to determine whether the application has the information and documents needed to enter the review process.

Plan review: Review of submitted plans and documents by the departments or disciplines responsible for checking the project.

Permit status: The current position of a permit or application in the municipal process, such as intake, review, corrections, approved, issued, inspection, or closed.

Plan review comment: A question, deficiency, or requested change issued by a reviewer during permit review.

Correction: A change or response made to address a review comment, application issue, document problem, or inspection result.

Revision: A change to plans or documents. A revision can happen during review or after permit issuance depending on the project and jurisdiction.

Resubmittal: The act of sending corrected or revised documents back to the jurisdiction for another review cycle.

Response letter: A document that lists review comments and explains where or how each item was addressed in the revised package.

Master or primary permit: The main permit for a project when a jurisdiction organizes related work under one primary record.

Trade permit: A permit tied to a specific construction trade, such as electrical, plumbing, mechanical, roofing, or another regulated scope.

Related permit: Another permit connected to the same project, property, or primary permit.

Approved plans: The plan set accepted by the reviewing jurisdiction for the permitted scope. The current approved set should be separated from older review versions.

Permit card: A permit record or job-site document showing key permit information. The exact format varies by jurisdiction.

Inspection: A review of permitted work at a required stage of construction or completion.

Failed inspection: An inspection that did not pass because the inspector identified an item that must be corrected before approval.

Reinspection: A later inspection requested after a failed or incomplete inspection item has been addressed.

Final inspection: The inspection used to confirm completion of the permitted work for the applicable trade or permit.

Inspection result: The status and notes recorded by the jurisdiction after an inspection, such as passed, failed, canceled, partial, or another local result.

Open permit: A permit that has not reached its final closed or completed status in the jurisdiction's records.

Expired permit: A permit that lost active status under the jurisdiction's expiration rules before the required work or permit steps were completed.

Permit Closure: The process of completing the remaining permit, inspection, document, fee, or municipal steps needed for the city record to reach its required final status.

Certificate of Completion: A final record used by some jurisdictions for completed permitted work that does not require a Certificate of Occupancy.

Certificate of Occupancy: A record associated with lawful occupancy of a building or space when required by the applicable process.

Certificate of Use: A local record used by some jurisdictions to confirm that a business, use, or occupancy is approved for a specific location.

Business Tax Receipt: A local business licensing or tax record required by many Florida jurisdictions for businesses operating within their boundaries.

Change of use or occupancy: A change in how a space is used or classified that can trigger zoning, building, fire, or business-opening review.

Permit history: The collection of permit records tied to a property, including applications, issued permits, inspections, revisions, and final status information.

Permit due diligence: Review of permit history and related municipal records before a lease, purchase, renovation, buildout, financing event, or other property decision.

Florida Building Code: Florida's statewide building-code system, made up of several code volumes that apply to different parts of construction and building review.

Code violation: A municipal or regulatory record alleging that a property, condition, use, or activity does not comply with an applicable code or ordinance.

Stop-work order: A direction requiring specified work to stop until the stated issue is resolved and the authority allows work to continue.

Notice of Commencement: A Florida construction-lien document that can be required in connection with permitted improvements and must be recorded and posted when the statute applies.

Private provider: A qualified professional or firm used under Florida law to provide certain building-code plan review or inspection services instead of the local government performing those specific services, subject to the statute's requirements.