An Essex County home inspector has built a free website that lets anyone look up the public records behind a New Jersey property &mdash; building permits, flood zones, fire history, oil tanks and contamination sites, property taxes, and more &mdash; by typing in an address.
The site, <a href="https://oprasearch.app/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Permit &amp; Parcel</a>, covers all 564 New Jersey municipalities and brings together records from official sources, including state and county databases, FEMA flood maps, and the towns&rsquo; own municipal codes. No account or email is required, and there&rsquo;s no cost. Since launching this spring it has handled more than 18,000 searches from every county in the state.
&ldquo;I kept watching buyers fall in love with a house before anyone checked the paper trail &mdash; the open permits, the flood zone, what the town actually requires when a home changes hands,&rdquo; said Leo Betancor, a Certified Master Inspector based in Cedar Grove and the founder of the site. &ldquo;All of that is public record. It just wasn&rsquo;t in one place anyone could actually use.&rdquo;
&ldquo;And it isn&rsquo;t only for buyers,&rdquo; Betancor added. &ldquo;With rates where they are, a lot of people are staying put. The house you already own has a paper trail too &mdash; an old oil tank, a flood zone change, a lead service line &mdash; and most owners have never seen it.&rdquo;
Alongside the main lookup, the site includes free single-purpose tools: a <a href="https://oprasearch.app/tools/contamination/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">contamination and tank lookup</a> showing known spill sites and registered tanks near any address, a <a href="https://oprasearch.app/tools/lead-pipes/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">lead water pipe check</a>, a <a href="https://oprasearch.app/tools/lead-safe/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">lead-safe inspection lookup</a> showing which of the two state-required inspection methods each town uses under New Jersey&rsquo;s lead paint law, a searchable <a href="https://oprasearch.app/lead-contractors/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">directory of DCA-certified lead evaluation and abatement contractors</a> sorted by distance, a <a href="https://oprasearch.app/tools/fire/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">fire-incident map</a> built from more than 40 years of state fire records, and a <a href="https://oprasearch.app/tools/radon/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">radon map</a> covering every municipality.
Homeowners can also <a href="https://oprasearch.app/tools/tax/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">look up property taxes and assessments</a>, <a href="https://oprasearch.app/tools/hvac-age/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">check the age of a furnace, air conditioner or water heater</a>using its serial number, and <a href="https://oprasearch.app/tools/co/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">find their town&rsquo;s certificate-of-occupancy requirements</a> before selling or renting a home.
A companion site, <a href="https://njflood.zone/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">njflood.zone</a>, gives instant FEMA flood-zone answers for any New Jersey address &mdash; built after the federal government shutdown left FEMA&rsquo;s own map site unreliable &mdash; running on the site&rsquo;s own servers with the complete flood map data for the state loaded locally.
Permit &amp; Parcel carries no advertising and is funded entirely by Smart Choice Inspections, Betancor&rsquo;s Cedar Grove home inspection company. Readers who find the site useful and need an inspection can claim <a href="https://callsmartchoice.com/patch" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">$100 off a qualifying home inspection</a>, or learn more on <a href="https://callsmartchoice.com/leobetancor/?gift=credit100&amp;campaign=patch" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">Betancor&rsquo;s page</a>.
The project was recently featured in <a href="https://www.tapinto.net/towns/east-hanover-slash-florham-park/columns/at-home-with-holly/articles/deep-dive-conversations-what-the-house-won-t-tell-you" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">TAPinto</a>. Both sites are free at <a href="https://oprasearch.app/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">oprasearch.app</a> and <a href="https://njflood.zone/" rel="noopener nofollow" target="_blank">njflood.zone!</a>

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