Where every answer comes from

Parcel number, owner, acreage, property class, school district, assessed and taxable value — and, where the county publishes them, the homestead percentage, the deed liber and page, and the last recorded sale

Not for: The roll belongs to the county, and what each one publishes differs: some carry no values at all, one withholds the owner name, and several are an assessment cycle or two behind. Outside the counties listed above the check reports that no record could be reached — never that no record exists.

The zoning district over the parcel, the future land-use designation where a master plan layer is published, and the municipality whose ordinance sets it

Not for: Zoning is a municipal power in Michigan, so only some counties publish a layer at all and not one of those covers every city, village and township inside its own borders. No layer reaching a point means unmapped, which is not the same thing as unzoned.

The local district and the intermediate district a parcel sits in

Not for: A boundary, not an enrolment. Schools of choice, charters and mid-year boundary changes all mean the district office is the only place that settles which school a child attends.

Whether the city, village or township lets a house be rented by the night, in the ordinance's own words, with the section it comes from and the date it was read

Not for: Our reading of a published ordinance on the date shown, not legal advice and not a permit. The state's boundary layer carries no villages, so a village address takes its township's answer and its own ordinance may differ. Where nobody has read the ordinance yet the check says so, rather than saying there are no rules.

Flood zone, whether the zone is a Special Flood Hazard Area, the base flood elevation where one is published, and the FIRM panel with its effective date

Not for: A flood map decides whether a lender requires insurance. It does not decide whether water reaches the house — property outside a mapped zone floods every year.

Whether the parcel sits in a designated area, with the 30- and 60-year setbacks, the area name and the study date

Not for: A designation describes long-term recession rates, not today's appearance. Where a slope is moving, that is a surveyor and a geotechnical engineer.

Whether the parcel is in a regulated critical dune, with the dune type and the mapped acreage

Not for: Inside one, construction, excavation and vegetation removal need an EGLE permit. The mapped boundary is the starting point for that conversation, not the permit.

Mapped wetland on or beside the parcel, which of the two inventories it came from, and the NWI classification

Not for: Both inventories are screening layers and both say so. Regulated wetland exists where the map shows none; only an onsite EGLE determination or a qualified delineation establishes a boundary.

Whether the parcel falls inside the state's coastal management boundary

The Great Lakes level at the nearest gauge, the station's distance, and the recent series against the record

Not for: Asked only near the big lake, and supplementary either way — lake level sets beach width, not bluff stability.

The lake, pond, stream or ditch mapped on and beside the coordinate, with what the survey calls it

Not for: Compiled at 1:24,000 from sources of different ages. A field drain, a seasonal channel or a re-routed stream can be missing, or drawn where it used to run.

The deepest surveyed depth contour within a quarter mile of the point

Not for: Survey contours, not soundings, and not a navigation chart. About 2,200 of Michigan's inland lakes have been surveyed at all — a lake with no contours has not been measured rather than being shallow.

Designated trout water within a mile, and whether a State Natural River corridor runs past

Not for: A Natural River designation carries its own building, septic and vegetation setbacks measured from the bank, and the township may add more on top.

Streams classed cold or cold-transitional within a mile

Not for: A thermal classification of the channel. It is not a designation and it says nothing about who owns the bank.

Which trout or salmon class governs the lake the point sits on

Not for: The class, not the rules. Seasons, sizes and limits move by order and are in the current Michigan Fishing Guide.

No-wake, speed, hours and motor restrictions on water within a mile — and the absence of any, which is what people mean by an all-sports lake

Not for: A drawing of local ordinances rather than the ordinances. The DNR's own note says that where the map and the language disagree, the language governs.

Public launches, carry-downs and fishing piers within five miles, with lanes, trailer parking and who runs them

Not for: A record the DNR holds, only as fresh as the last inspection. It does not say the ramp is deep enough for your boat or that the site is open this season.

Harbours in the state programme within fifteen miles, with their contact

Not for: The DNR's programme only. Private yacht clubs and members-only basins are not in it, so a blank is not a statement that there is nowhere to keep a boat.

Dams within ten miles, with the hazard-potential class, condition rating and year built the Corps publishes for each

Not for: Hazard potential describes what would happen downstream if a dam failed, not how likely failure is.

Where the state has collected and tested fish within five miles

Not for: Sampling sites, not advisories, and water with no point on it has not been cleared — it has not been sampled. The eating advice is MDHHS's Eat Safe Fish guide, a separate document.

Charted dredged water and its shallowest charted depth, and the buoys and beacons within a mile and a half

Not for: Not for navigation. Buoys are seasonal and move, a dredged depth is from the last survey, and nothing read here is corrected by Notice to Mariners.

Designated paddling routes within three miles

Not for: Thirteen routes in the whole state, so blank water is water without a designation rather than water without paddling.

The tract's expected annual loss, social vulnerability and community resilience ratings, and the hazards driving them

Not for: A census tract holds a few thousand people. This is community-level exposure and it says nothing about one parcel.

Soil series, drainage class, septic and basement ratings, depth to the seasonal water table and flooding frequency

Not for: A screening tool at survey scale. It does not replace a perc test, a soil boring, a septic evaluation or geotechnical work.

Nearby well depth, static water level, aquifer type and construction date

Not for: The records of other people's wells. What is in the water at this house comes from testing this house.

Contamination sites near the address with their risk condition and named contaminants, and the count of tanks with open releases

Ground elevation at the exact coordinate

Not for: Supplementary: a failure here is never counted as a gap in the answer. A bare ground elevation is not a flood elevation and not an elevation certificate.

Whether the ground under the point formed under saturation, and what is mapped within a third of a mile if it did not

Not for: One of the three tests for a wetland, drawn at survey scale. Not a wetland determination, and not a septic answer.

Whether the parcel sits in the capture zone of a public water supply well, and which system's

Not for: Only public systems with a state-approved programme appear at all, so most of the map is blank for want of a programme rather than want of a well.

Recorded restrictions on how ground may be dug, built on or drunk from within a mile, and the brownfield projects beside them

Not for: A restriction runs with the land, not the owner. The recorded instrument at the Register of Deeds is what sets the terms.

Licensed solid-waste facilities within three miles and reconstructed historic dumps within one

Not for: Much of the historic inventory is located only to the square-mile section, and it reconstructs dumps that closed before licensing existed. Absence there is not evidence of absence.

Recorded well holes within two miles, with type, status, operator and total depth

Not for: Surface holes only — a well can be bottomed a mile away under someone else's land. Who owns the minerals under this parcel is a title question.

Measured traffic volume on the nearest counted road, with the count year

Not for: Supplementary: a failure here is never counted as a gap. Only roads MDOT counts appear, so a quiet number can simply mean the busy road nearby is not on the programme.

How many people live in the city or township, and which way that has moved since 2020

Not for: Estimates carried forward from the 2020 count, describing a whole municipality rather than a neighbourhood.

What the county's houses actually sold for last month, and the twelve-month move

Not for: Sold prices, county-wide, for one month. A county median covers a lakeshore and its farmland in one number and says nothing about a street.

Hiking, biking, ski, rail-trail, ORV and snowmobile routes within a mile

Not for: State-managed and state-grant-funded trails only. A great many local, county and private trails are missing from the inventory.

Public and conserved land on the parcel or within a mile, with who owns it, who manages it and whether it is open

Not for: Ownership and management boundaries, not access rights. Private inholdings sit inside these outlines.

Listed buildings and historic districts within half a mile, with the listing date and reference number

Not for: Federal listing is recognition rather than control. What constrains a remodel is a locally designated district under the municipality's own ordinance, and those appear in no national dataset.