How accurate is the Kolmo permit lookup?

Every fee, threshold, and timeline is sourced from the city or county directly, with the exact quote and URL surfaced on every page. The dataset is re-verified weekly via an automated freshness pipeline. Where a jurisdiction has not published clear guidance, the tool says so rather than guess.

Does the lookup cover unincorporated King, Pierce, or Snohomish County?

Yes. Address-based lookup automatically routes to the county building department when a parcel is outside city limits. King, Pierce, and Snohomish unincorporated jurisdictions are first-class entries in the dataset.

Will this replace calling the permit center?

For most homeowner projects — decks, kitchens, bathrooms, ADUs, fences, siding, windows, flooring, roofing, HVAC, electrical, plumbing — the published answer matches what the permit center will say, and the homeowner can submit with a pre-filled application packet. For variances, conditional uses, or unusual scope, calling the city planner is still recommended.

Where does the address go after submission?

The address is geocoded via Google Maps to identify the correct county, then queried against public county GIS endpoints. Parcel data is cached for 30 days. The address is not contacted, sold, or shared with third parties.

Who built this — and why?

Built by Kolmo Construction, a licensed Seattle-area general contractor. The team works with permit code daily and built this to fix the public web's poor coverage of homeowner permit questions. The lookup is free; if a homeowner wants a contractor for the project, Kolmo is one option.

Data quality & transparency

We grade the public web on permit accuracy.

Most homeowner permit answers on the web are written once and never updated. Cities change rules; ranked sources don't follow. We scan the top-ranked Google results for 10 seed queries across King, Pierce, and Snohomish County, compare each to our verified data, and surface what's out of date — with the exact quote, the source URL, and the date we last checked.

Last scan: 2026-04-27. Sources scanned to date: 7. AI-flagged for review: 3. Publicly confirmed stale: 0.

Sources scanned

AI-flagged for review

Publicly confirmed stale

Seed queries tracked

Methodology

For each tracked query (e.g., "Seattle deck permit"), we:

Pull the top organic results — via Google's search API (Serper.dev). When the API is unavailable, we fall back to a manually curated list of the top sources currently ranking. The seed list is in server/features/permit/stale-source-detector/seed-sources.ts; anyone can audit it.
Fetch each result and extract the page text. User-agent identifies as a normal browser; we respect robots.txt and rate-limit our requests to no faster than 4/second per host.
Classify each source against our verified Kolmo answer using Gemini 2.5 Flash with a constrained JSON schema. The classifier is given strict guardrails: be conservative, only flag clear factual conflicts, never flag for stylistic differences.
Human review before public flagging. A flag from the AI classifier is not a public accusation. It enters a queue (the "Pending review" list below) until a Kolmo team member confirms or rejects it. Only confirmed-stale sources are publicly named.

What "stale" means

A source is stale when:

It reports a permit threshold, fee, review timeline, or code reference that contradicts the live published rule from the issuing jurisdiction.
It quotes a fee from a year that no longer applies and the actual fee changed.
It cites a code cycle that has been superseded.

A source is not stale when:

It differs from our answer in framing, formatting, or scope of detail.
It quotes a different but valid related rule (e.g., commercial vs residential).
It has older publication dates but the underlying numbers still match the current rule.

How we handle disputes

If you publish a flagged source and disagree with our verdict, email [email protected] with the URL and your reasoning. We take down a public flag while we re-review. Our standard turnaround on disputes is 5 business days.

What we don't do

We don't flag sources for being a competitor. Conflict of interest matters; we name the source, not the author.
We don't run hidden affiliate links. We're a Seattle GC; we'd rather you call us, but we don't gate the data behind a lead form.
We don't paywall the dataset. Every classification, including our verified Kolmo answer for each query, is on this page.

Confirmed stale

0 source(s)

Reviewed and confirmed stale by the Kolmo team. Public-facing leaderboard.

No sources have been confirmed stale by the Kolmo team yet. As confirmations come in, they'll be listed here with the date of confirmation.

Pending team review

3 source(s)

AI-flagged by our classifier. Source URLs are listed here for transparency but they are not yet publicly named as stale — the Kolmo team must verify each before promotion to the confirmed list. Each row shows the model's reasoning and confidence.

seattle.govSERP rank #1confidence 0.90classifier: gemini-2.5-flash

Open

Fences — Seattle SDCI

What the source claims

"The source claims that a permit is not needed for building a fence 8 feet high or lower, unless it has masonry/concrete pieces over 6 feet or is in a flood-prone area."

AI classifier reasoning

The source's permit exemption threshold of 8 feet for fences directly contradicts Kolmo's verified answer that fences over 6 feet tall require a building permit in Seattle.

Query: Seattle fence permitJurisdiction: seattleProject: fenceClassified 2026-04-27

seattle.govSERP rank #1confidence 0.90classifier: gemini-2.5-flash

Open

Accessory Dwelling Units — Seattle SDCI

What the source claims

"The Seattle Municipal Code governing Accessory Dwelling Units is 23.42.022."

AI classifier reasoning

The source cites Seattle Municipal Code 23.42.022 for Accessory Dwelling Units, which is an outdated code reference. The current primary code section for ADUs in Neighborhood Residential zones, reflecting the 2019 MHA and 2023 ADU rule expansions, is SMC 23.44.041.

Query: Seattle ADU permit requirementsJurisdiction: seattleProject: aduClassified 2026-04-27

seattle.govSERP rank #1confidence 0.90classifier: gemini-2.5-flash

Open

Decks — Seattle SDCI

What the source claims

"A permit is needed to build a deck if it is more than 18 inches above the ground."

AI classifier reasoning

The source states that a permit is required for decks more than 18 inches above ground, which contradicts Kolmo's verified information that the current threshold, updated by Director's Rule (Tip 311), references 30 inches.

Query: Seattle deck permitJurisdiction: seattleProject: deckClassified 2026-04-27

Coverage

Where we've scanned, broken down by jurisdiction and project type.

By jurisdiction

seattle6 scanned · 3 flagged
tacoma1 scanned · 0 flagged

By project type

deck3 scanned · 1 flagged
adu2 scanned · 1 flagged
kitchen1 scanned · 0 flagged
fence1 scanned · 1 flagged

Recently scanned

The 30 most recently classified sources, regardless of verdict.

Verdict	Domain	Query	Last seen
ok	houzz.com	do I need a permit to remodel my kitchen Seattle	2026-04-27
ok	cityoftacoma.org	Tacoma deck permit	2026-04-27
flagged	seattle.gov	Seattle fence permit	2026-04-27
ok	aduniverse-seattlecitygis.hub.arcgis.com	Seattle ADU permit requirements	2026-04-27
flagged	seattle.gov	Seattle ADU permit requirements	2026-04-27
ok	houzz.com	Seattle deck permit	2026-04-27
flagged	seattle.gov	Seattle deck permit	2026-04-27