Verifying project activity against the public record
A construction draw is a bet that work is actually getting done. The borrower's report says it is; the permit and inspection record either backs that up or it doesn't. This is how a lending team adds an independent, public execution signal to its draw and credit decisions.
The challenge
Draw requests rely on self-reported progress
When a borrower requests a draw, the supporting evidence is largely their own — progress photos, a contractor's affidavit, a percentage-complete figure. A lender wants an independent check that the project is genuinely permitted and advancing through the inspection milestones that govern real construction.
Gathering that check manually means a loan officer calling a building department or digging through a portal for each project. At any kind of portfolio scale, that simply doesn't happen, and the draw goes out on the borrower's word alone.
The approach
Tie draws to issued permits and inspection milestones
Builders Monitor surfaces the permits tied to a project's address — whether they were issued, where each one sits in its inspection sequence, and whether the work has reached the closing milestones. A lender can line the draw schedule up against that public trail and see whether reported progress is consistent with what the municipality has actually recorded.
When the record and the report agree, the draw clears faster. When they diverge — permits not pulled, inspections not progressing — the lender has a concrete, sourced reason to ask questions before releasing funds.
The outcome
An execution signal the borrower doesn't control
The lending team adds a verification layer it didn't have: an independent read on whether construction is real and on schedule. Good projects move through draws with less friction; the ones that warrant scrutiny get it earlier, before exposure grows.
It's an execution signal the borrower doesn't control — the municipality records it whether the draw says so or not.
Illustrative — construction-lending workflow
The workflow
How it runs in the product
- 1Search
Find the permits on the project
Look up the project address and pull every associated permit, with issued status and scope, so you know the work is on the record.
- 2Record detail
Check the inspection sequence
Open each permit to confirm it's progressing through inspections toward a final — the milestone trail that real construction has to clear.
- 3API
Monitor the portfolio
Wire address-level permit status into your servicing system so changes in a project's inspection trail surface against the draw schedule automatically.
What powers it
The data behind the workflow
Each field below is a real product capability — normalized across thousands of municipal portals into one schema.
permit.issued_date / statusConfirms the project is genuinely permitted.inspection.sequence + resultShows the work is advancing through milestones.permit.final_statusMarks completion that the borrower can't fabricate.property linkageConnects the public record to the funded project.
See it for your team
Start free with 50 record lookups a month. Search and browse are always free — you only spend a lookup when you open a full record.