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A free lot feasibility report from United Signature tells you whether a backyard home appears feasible on your Washington lot, which city rules shape it, what size and design tend to fit, what similar projects have cost nearby, and which site factors still need checking in person. It arrives as four pages built from public records.
It does not replace a survey, a permit review or a bid, and it is not meant to. Its job is narrower and comes earlier: to give you a sourced starting point before you pay for design, talk to a lender or settle on a plan. This article walks through what goes into the request, what each page covers and what happens once you have read it.
Why a Lot Check Comes Before Design Fees
When an ADU project stalls early, the cause is usually the lot rather than the floor plan: a rule the owner did not know about, a slope, a flood zone, a sewer question, or too little room left once the main house is counted. Washington’s newer ADU laws opened many more lots to backyard homes, but they still leave cities in charge of details that vary from parcel to parcel.
Discovering those issues after paying for drawings is costly. Discovering them from a desk study costs nothing and takes a few hours. For the statewide background, our overview of how Puget Sound cities adopted HB 1337 explains the baseline every city now works from.
The Four Questions on the Request Form
The request is a short online form, described as two minutes and four steps. It accepts properties in Washington State only.
Your property: street address, city, ZIP code and county, plus whether you own the home, have it under contract or have some other connection to it.
Your project: a backyard home, an addition, a garage conversion or not sure yet, along with your goals, such as housing for family, rental income, aging in place, downsizing or adding value.
Your lot: how the rear yard is reached, whether it has trees, whether the house uses sewer or septic, and whether a homeowners association applies, with room for anything else you want the team to know.
Your contact details: name, email, mobile number and preferred way to be reached, plus an optional field for a real estate broker.
Take the lot questions seriously. Public records rarely show a narrow side yard or a big tree, and septic service or an HOA can change the outcome, so what you know about your own yard makes the report sharper.
Inside the Four Pages
Every report follows the same structure. If you want to see the format before requesting one, United Signature publishes a sample feasibility report online.
Page One: The Verdict and How Sure It Is
The first page gives the decision in plain words, for example “appears feasible with conditions,” together with a confidence level for that call. When there are conditions, the page names them. In the published sample, the recommendation is to design toward a two-bedroom unit once water and sewer service are confirmed in writing.
Page Two: Your City’s Rules Applied to Your Parcel
Page two sets out the zoning rules for the lot: units allowed, size limits, height, setbacks, lot coverage and parking. Those are the same categories a city guide covers, narrowed to one address. If the unit count is your main question, our explainer on how many ADUs a Washington lot can hold covers the state rules behind that number.
Page Three: What Fits and What It May Cost
The third page turns the rules into design options, showing what tends to fit on the space that is left, and adds a planning cost range drawn from what comparable work has cost nearby. Use that range for budgeting, not as a quote. If the suggested size lands near 1,000 square feet, our comparison of three plans sized just under 1,000 square feet shows how homes in that range are laid out.
Page Four: What a Desk Review Could Not See
The last page lists the factors public records cannot confirm, such as equipment access, trees, utilities and easements. For many homeowners this is the most practical page, because it becomes the checklist for the site visit if the project moves ahead.
How the Report Is Prepared
The team pulls zoning, setback, flood-zone, slope and utility information for the parcel from public records. Nobody visits the property for this step.
United Signature states that every number in the report is sourced and dated, so you can see where a figure came from and how current it is. That matters in a region where ADU codes were rewritten several times between 2024 and 2026, and an older summary of the rules can easily be out of date.
Delivery takes a few hours. When something in the records is unclear, a person looks at it before the report goes out instead of letting an automated result stand.
Limits of a Report Built From Public Records
The report calls itself a desk study, not a survey, a permit, a bid or an appraisal. It can tell you what your city allows, how much room is left on the lot, what tends to fit and what it has cost nearby. It cannot tell you whether a permit will pass, what the finished property will be worth or what your final price will be.
Those limits are deliberate. Exact property lines need a surveyor, permit decisions belong to the city, and a construction price depends on soil, access, utility routes and finishes that only a site visit and design can pin down. In United Signature’s words, a professional review, including a site visit, comes before any scope or price is proposed.
When the Answer Is No, or Yes With Conditions
A feasibility check is only useful if it is able to deliver bad news, and this one says so plainly: the report is allowed to say no. A lot with critical areas, a parcel lacking the needed utilities, or a yard with too little room left after the main house can produce a negative or heavily qualified answer.
A conditional answer tells you which question to settle first. If the condition is written confirmation of water and sewer service, that is the call to make before paying for design. If it is a tree or a slope, the site visit should start there.
A no still has value. It can save you from a design contract that would have ended at the permit counter, and because the form also covers additions and garage conversions, it can open a conversation about a different kind of project.
What Happens After You Read It
United Signature reaches out once after the report is delivered. From there the decision is yours: continue to a site visit and design, or stop with no further obligation. The site visit only happens if you choose to go on.
If you continue, the visit checks the page-four items in person and design follows. Our realistic ADU timeline shows how the later stages fit together, and the four-step process page lays out the same path from the report team’s side.
Getting More Out of Your Report
Answer the lot questions candidly, including trees, septic and HOA status, because those details steer the review.
Read page four as closely as page one; the unverified items are where surprises tend to come from.
Keep the report with your project files, since its sourced figures give a designer, a lender or a family member the same starting facts you have.
If you are buying, request it while the home is under contract; the form accepts that status and lets you name your broker.
When you are ready, send your address for a free lot review and decide on next steps once the four pages are in hand.
FAQ
Does requesting a lot report cost anything or commit me to a project?
No. The report is free and comes with no obligation. After it is delivered, the company contacts you once, and you can stop there.
Does anyone need access to my backyard for the report?
No. The report is prepared from public records and the details you enter on the form. A site visit happens only if you decide to move forward.
Can I get a report for a property outside Washington?
No. The request form accepts Washington addresses only. Its county list includes Snohomish, King, Pierce, Kitsap, Thurston, Whatcom, Skagit, Island, Clark and Spokane, with an option for other counties.
Can I request a report for a home I am still buying?
Yes. The form lets you mark the property as under contract and name your real estate broker. Because delivery takes hours rather than weeks, the report can fit inside a short contingency period.
Can the report help with an addition or garage conversion instead of a backyard home?
The form offers backyard home, addition, garage conversion and not sure as project types, so you can state what you are considering. The findings still come from public records, so the site-specific questions for those projects are confirmed later in person.