MY CITY SAYS MY PLANS NEED STAMPING — WHO CAN HELP?
The letter reads like a roadblock. Read properly, it's a work order — and it tells us exactly what your reviewer has to cover.
A professional engineer licensed in your state can. The city's notice means a licensed PE must review your plans, take professional responsibility for the engineering in them, and seal the set before the permit can move. Send us the city's letter with your plans: the letter names the disciplines and code sections the reviewer must cover, and the review is scoped directly from it.
What the city is really asking for
Building departments don't ask for stamps as paperwork. The requirement means the engineering in your plans — structure, or mechanical, electrical, plumbing or civil design — has to be certified by a licensed professional who answers for it, because your set falls outside what the code lets the department approve on drawings alone. Sometimes the notice arrives before review, as a submittal requirement; sometimes it arrives as a correction comment after the first plan check. Either way, the deliverable the city wants is the same: a sealed set, signed and dated by an engineer licensed in your state, whose review the seal certifies.
The fastest path back into the queue
Start with the letter itself. It usually names the disciplines, the sheets and sometimes the specific code sections the city wants engineered — which means your review can be scoped from it in one pass, with no guessing about what the examiner needs. The reviewing PE checks the set against exactly those requirements plus the code basis behind them, corrects what's short, and seals the corrected set for resubmission. Where the city's comment is ambiguous, the reviewer's response letter answers it point by point — the format examiners close files on. Every week a project sits out of the queue is a week of schedule; a review scoped from the city's own words is the shortest route back in.
Why the seal has to come from a real review
It would be faster to buy a stamp. It would also be illegal in every state, voidable at the permit counter, and obvious to the examiner who asked for engineering in the first place — a seal with no review behind it invites the deeper look nobody wants. The legitimate route is built for exactly this moment: an engineer licensed in your jurisdiction reviews the set you have, fixes what the city flagged and what the code requires, and seals work they can stand behind. Seal Anvil runs that desk for projects in 49 states; the engagement starts with the letter and the plans, and the quote comes back in writing before the review begins.