My city's permit filing info is online and public. Try to google your city's licenses and permits and see if something similar comes up.

Any contractor that tries to scare you into not pulling permits just doesn't want his work inspected. Is he actually licensed and insured? (As in you've actually called the conractor's registration department and insurance company to verify it yourself.) Perhaps he cannot pull permits in your locality because he isn't legit himself.

I'm also curious as to people's experience as to whether once the inspector is in your house if they start looking for other things. I understand all the cautionary reasons to do things the right way. Just curious about that particular question.

But I agree you should be able to go to the building department without anyone monitoring you and see what permits have been pulled for your property. We have an issue about having to correct something that was done well before we bought our house because the violation came up when we submitted an application to do other work.

Thanks for the feedback. We are down to 2 contractors both verified, both not really wanting to do permits but one seems a little more willing while the other tries to talk us out of it. Red flag to me. I agree with you Sophie. There was 1 company who was willing to pull them but they do a lot of insurance work so I think they are used to it??? They were too high end for us though. I'll go do some more leg work. I feel like it wouldn't be as much of an issue if we were just upgrading but the shower is going to the other side of the room, the tub turned 90 deg, etc. Big project.