What happens before a permit is filed

The first useful conversation is about scope: what is being built, what it attaches to, what the property already has, and which jurisdiction will review it.

Two projects that look alike in a listing can take different paths because one alters a structural wall and the other does not. Establishing that early is cheaper than discovering it during review.

Most residential permits ask for a floor plan, elevations, a section or two, a site plan showing the work in relation to the property line, and details for anything unusual.

Commercial work adds life safety, egress, restrooms and ventilation to the same core. The set is sized to the review rather than to a house style.

Some drawings have to be prepared and sealed by an architect, and some jurisdictions ask for a sealed set on scopes that would not require it elsewhere.

Where a sealed set is needed, the drawings have to be produced by the person signing them. A set drawn by someone else and signed afterwards is not a service this site arranges, and it is the first thing to establish before work starts.

The address, the survey if there is one, photographs of the existing condition, any notice the jurisdiction has already sent, and a plain description of what you want to end up with.

That is enough to say what the project needs, what it does not need, and which of the two is the more useful conversation to have first.