Case records
Case records are the municipality's public postal journal read into the property panel. You get the cases registered against the property, the documents in each case and the files in each document, with search, a date filter and four geographic levels to look in.
What the archive holds
A postal journal is the municipality's register: every document that goes into or out of the case processing system is entered with a date, a title and a sender or recipient. Placepoint collects these journals and links them to the matrikkel number and address they mention.
That gives you building cases at every stage, from byggesøknad (building application) and rammetillatelse (framework permit) via igangsettingstillatelse (commencement permit) to ferdigattest (completion certificate) or midlertidig brukstillatelse (temporary permission to occupy). It also gives you dispensations, appeals, orders, neighbour notifications, planning initiatives and detailed zoning plans with all the comments that followed them.
And it gives you everything else the municipality records at the same address: signage plans, speed limits, water meters, drainage, snow clearing complaints, road safety cases. The case list for Nesgata 1 above is a typical selection. This is not a building case register with fixed case types, it is the journal, and it is broader than building cases.
How to open the tab
- Search for the property and click it on the map. See Finding property and opportunities.
- Click the Government cases tab in the property panel.
If the panel is narrow, the tab sits behind the button with the hidden tabs at the far right of the tab row. Drag the left edge of the panel to make it wider, so all the tabs fit and the three-column table becomes readable at the same time.
The count sits at the top: All cases (17). The same number appears on the Government cases row in the Overview tab. A high number can mean active development or a long appeal history, but a low number does not mean things are quiet: the municipality may have registered the case against the neighbouring site or against the street name instead.
The case list
The list has three columns, and you sort on any of them by clicking the heading. It opens sorted by date with the most recent case at the top.
| Column | Content |
|---|---|
| Date | The date of the most recent journal entry in the case, dd.mm.yyyy |
| Title | The municipality's own case title. Some municipalities put gårds- og bruksnummer first (81/2474 Nesgata 1 - ...), others just the address or the street name |
| documents | Number of journalled documents in the case |
The arrow at the right of the row opens the case. The title is the municipality's, not ours, so it is the best pointer to what the case is actually about, and worth reading before you assume that a case concerns this particular site.
Four levels to look in
The Show for selector at the top right switches which area the case list covers. Municipalities register a lot against a stretch of road or an area instead of a single matrikkel number, so this is often the difference between finding the case and believing it does not exist.
| Level | What you get |
|---|---|
| This Property | Default. Only cases linked to the property you are on |
| Neighbourhood | The property and the neighbouring sites around it. Here you see the neighbours' appeal history before you apply for anything yourself |
| Basic statistical unit | The whole basic statistical unit. Fastest route to area zoning plans that affect several properties at once |
| Street / road | Cases linked to the street name. Picks up road improvements, pavements and road safety work that the municipality records against the stretch |
The difference is large. Nesgata 1 has 17 cases on itself and 59 when you switch to Neighbourhood, and the 42 new ones are neighbour notifications, changes of use and traffic cases in the surrounding block.
Search, date filter and grouping
The search field filters the list you are in on title, and highlights the match in the text. It is the fastest route through a long list when you know what you are looking for: trafikk takes Nesgata 1 from 17 cases to five.
The funnel icon next to the search field opens Filter, which narrows the list by date with From and To. Use it when you want to see what happened in the year before a purchase, or to separate cases from the current owner from cases from the previous one.
The cog next to it opens View settings. There you group the list by year instead of no grouping, and sort by date or by number of documents. Sorting on document count is the quick way to find the one heavy case in a list of thirty.
From case to document to file
Case records have three levels, and you move down by clicking a row. The arrow to the left of the title takes you back.
If you click a case, the table switches to the documents in that case. The columns are the same, except that the last one now counts files instead of documents, and the titles carry the municipality's journal number in the form year/serial number-document number.
If you click a document, it expands with the metadata from the journal and the files that belong to it:
| Field | Content |
|---|---|
| Case number | The municipality's case number, 2020/80470 |
| Document no. | The serial number of the document in the case |
| Document date | The journal entry date, often different from the case date in the list above |
| From and To | Sender and recipient. If the party is a registered company, the name is a link to the company card in Placepoint |
| Source | Link to the same document in the municipality's own public access solution |
| files (N) | Each file with a date and file name, as a direct download |
The files are usually PDFs, but a planning case also has SOSI files and control files, so a zoning plan can be downloaded in the format it was delivered to the municipality in. That is often the whole point of coming here rather than going to a download portal.
How much data, and how fresh
Placepoint collects postal journals from more than 330 municipalities, and the archive holds more than 20 million journalled documents. The distribution is skewed: a typical municipality contributes around 20,000 documents, while Oslo alone has more than 5 million journalled documents.
The depth varies more than the volume. The oldest documents are from 2000, and around thirty municipalities reach back to before 2010, but in most municipalities the archive starts in 2020 or later. That is the most important limitation to know about when you are looking for history: an empty list on a site with buildings from 1970 usually means the municipality has not digitised that far back.
You can see which municipalities are included in the map layer Coverage Map Case Access, which also shows the number of documents per municipality. The municipalities update their postal journals continuously, and Placepoint collects new documents on an ongoing basis. All the numbers above are gathered on Placepoint in numbers.
The archive is a copy of the municipality's postal journal, not a complete building case archive. The very newest documents, and everything from before the municipality's digital journal started, are only available from the municipality itself. The Source link in the document view goes straight there.
What you will not find here
- Cases the municipality has registered against a different matrikkel number without mentioning this one. Switch to Neighbourhood, Basic statistical unit or Street / road before you conclude.
- A case type or status column. The journal records documents, not case status, so whether a measure ended in a permit or a refusal is something you read out of the document titles in the case.
- Free text search in the content of the documents. The search field works on the title.
- Municipalities without a postal journal. The 22 municipalities missing from the coverage map give an empty tab, and there the municipality's own public access solution is the only route.
- Building data. The statuses and dates for a building sit in the building panel; Case records are the documents behind them.
Monitoring: new cases without looking
Monitoring runs the same postal journals daily against the properties and areas in a project. A new case that would have appeared in the Government cases tab instead becomes an activity in the project log and an email the next morning, with a link to the original document.
Two things follow from it being the same data basis. The coverage is the same: a municipality without a postal journal does not alert, no matter how many properties you add. And the levels are connected: Monitoring follows either properties in the project or a drawn area, which is the same difference as between This Property and the three broader levels in Show for. If a property is heavy on neighbour cases, it is the area you want to monitor, not the site.
Typical use cases
Acquisition assessment before a bidding round. Open Government cases and look for ongoing disputes, appeal cases, dispensation applications or orders that could affect the value. Sort on document count to find the heavy cases first, and combine it with the Zoning tab in the property panel for the full plan and case status. See Due diligence.
Forensic review of a development. Older cases show what has stood on the site, which extensions have been approved, and whether there have been changes of use. This is especially useful for industrial and commercial property, where contamination history can sit in an old building case. Check the depth of the archive for the municipality in question before you interpret an empty result.
Neighbour appeals and process history. Switch to Neighbourhood and read the appeal cases from the surrounding block. The municipality's assessments of sight lines, heights, parking and accesses recur, and they point out the conflict points in your own case before you have submitted it.
Verifying a completion certificate. Search for ferdigattest in the case list for a building you are considering leasing or buying. A missing completion certificate can mean legal uncertainty for a later change of use or refinancing.
Documentation delivery to a client. Download drawings, plan maps and decisions directly from the file view and put them in a project sheet or data room. You avoid ordering copies from the municipality, and you get the plan map in SOSI format if the case has it.
See also
- The property panel - all the tabs, including Government cases.
- Monitoring - an alert when a new case appears on a property you follow.
- Coverage Map Case Access - which municipalities we collect postal journals from.
- Buildings - the building that is often the subject of the application in the case.
- Land register and documents (FAQ) - short answers about documents and extracts.
- Placepoint in numbers - all the numbers above, gathered.