Who Pulled a Permit?
The contractor of record is named on the filing. Here is how we pull that name and turn it into a usable list.
Who pulled a permit is answered directly on the filing itself: every building permit record names a contractor of record, and in many jurisdictions also an owner, and that name, a business in nearly every case worth acting on, is who applied for and holds the permit. Pemberton Data Solutions pulls that name from each jurisdiction's public permit system across 55 city and county systems in 39 counties in SC, NC, GA, and TN, normalizes it where possible against SC Secretary of State registrations, and delivers it as a named row in a scored workbook rather than leaving you to look up one permit at a time on a county portal.
What gets published, and by whom, is not consistent. Some jurisdictions publish only the contractor and no separate owner field. Some publish both. Macon County, NC, publishes no owner name at all on its permits, which is a real gap in that source rather than an error in our pipeline. When a field is missing, the cell in your file is blank rather than filled in with a guess, because a wrong name is worse than no name.
There is a hard line on whose name appears. South Carolina's Family Privacy Protection Act, S.C. Code § 30-2-50, prohibits using individuals' personal information from public records for commercial solicitation, so individual homeowners are never named in our permit feeds, free or paid. A residential permit still carries a usable name: the contractor's business, which is who you would actually call about the work. Business and entity owners, including LLCs and developers, are named in full.
A single permit lookup only gets you one answer. If you need to know who is active across a whole territory, Territory Feed Pro adds a builders sheet: every active builder ranked, with a named contact pulled from their own filings, plus phone, email, and website where published, and owner mailing addresses and SC entity status where county data allows. That turns "who pulled this one permit" into "who is pulling permits in my market right now."
Territory Feed is $500 per delivery and includes the contractor name on every row. Territory Feed Pro is $700 and adds the builders sheet described above. Both are paid once, upfront, with no auto-renewal, and a real sample month is available before you order anything.
What a permit filing can tell you
| Field | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Contractor of record | The business licensed to do the work; named on nearly every filing |
| Owner (where published) | The property owner named on the application, business or individual; withheld for individuals per S.C. Code § 30-2-50 |
| Owner type flag (Pro) | Distinguishes business owners from individuals in Upstate SC, Charlotte, and other select counties |
| Builders sheet (Pro) | Every active builder in the territory, ranked, with a contact pulled from their own filings |
Straight answers
What does "who pulled a permit" mean, exactly?
It refers to the contractor of record named on a building permit filing, the business that applied for and holds the permit. Many jurisdictions also publish a separate owner name on the same filing.
Does the data show homeowners' names?
No. South Carolina's Family Privacy Protection Act, S.C. Code § 30-2-50, prohibits using individuals' personal information from public records for commercial solicitation, so individual homeowners are never named. Business and entity owners are included in full.
What if the jurisdiction doesn't name an owner at all?
Then that cell is blank rather than guessed at. Macon County, NC, for example, publishes no owner name at all on its permits. Coverage is not uniform across the 55 permit systems in our footprint, and a blank is the honest record of what the source published.
Can I get a ranked list of builders instead of individual permits?
Yes. Territory Feed Pro at $700 per delivery adds a builders sheet ranking every active builder in your territory, with a named contact pulled from their own filings plus phone, email, and website where published.
How do I check who pulled a specific permit?
Order a sample or a territory feed covering that jurisdiction and look up the address. For a one-off question outside a feed, email [email protected] and a person answers within one business day.