Permit Partners

I have worked in development and construction in Austin most of my life, and have encountered various levels of greed and unprofessional behavior. My experience with Permit Partners is my new gold standard for greedy unprofessional behavior. From the start the bills seemed high (over $ 500 to set up my file? Over $ 80 for scheduling a meeting?) But I let them slide, because the services to come later were going to supposedly save us some time and frustration with the city. They did not.
I finally lost my patience (and my cool, I’ll admit) when I received a bill for $ 131.50 (45 minutes of time) for an email. An email sent to the designer on the project to simply confirm that he was still going to be doing the drawings on the project! Apparently they must have a blind, arthritic octogenarian writing and reading their emails. I can think of no other reason this would take so much time. I confirmed with the designer that there was no other nuance to this. It was a two sentence email from Permit Partners to him, and a two sentence reply.
When I called to complain about this bill, I was told I would receive a call back from the owner within a few days. I did not. I had to call three more times to even get them to «look at» the problem. When they did, instead of the call from the owner I was told to expect, I received an email from the secretary stating that they had reviewed the bill and saw no problem. This was THREE WEEKS AND THREE CALLS later. I called again, and requested to speak with the owner. I FINALLY got a call from him two days later. He defended the billing, and seemed incredulous that I would even question it. He tried to spin it that the employee handling my file had had «in depth discussions» with the designer. He was unaware (and I did not let on) that I already knew how «in depth» these discussions were. When I pressed the issue, rather than admit a mistake and offer a token reduction and a promise to be more careful with my money (all I was looking for), he got in a huff and ratcheted up his indignation. Instead of an apologize he chose to terminate our contract and return our (barely worked on) file and what remained of our (thoroughly pillaged) $ 1500 retainer.
And yet, five days later, I have received nothing from them, not even an email confirming termination, let alone my file and my dough.
BOTTOM LINE: Unless you are a masochist looking to get over-​billed and under-​served, my advice would be to use one of the many other permit expediters in town.