The Compliance Gate, explained
Five pass/fail checks that have to clear before running any other engine.
The Compliance Gate is WaVES' first engine. It runs five binary pass/fail checks: title/ownership, zoning compliance, building permits, environmental clearance, and no active litigation, all before any other engine is used. It's an Enterprise-only engine, not part of the self-serve Free or Pro tier experience. A failing gate puts every downstream engine on hold. A developer can choose to proceed through an explicit two-step override, but this converts the state to provisional rather than clearing it, and every downstream score will surface that flag visibly until the gate genuinely passes on a re-run.
A title or zoning problem caught before any modelling begins costs a few minutes to fix. The same problem caught after weeks of viability work costs the weeks. The Compliance Gate exists to force that check first.
The five gates
- Title / ownership clear.
- Zoning compliant for the intended use.
- Building and construction permits approved.
- Environmental clearance obtained.
- No active litigation or encumbrance on the land.
The three possible states
- Clear (100/100): all five pass. The status is saved and feeds every downstream engine automatically.
- Blocked: happens if even a single gate fails. Every downstream engine is put on hold. The blocked state cannot be dismissed, it can only be cleared by re-running the check and genuinely passing.
- Provisional: the user has explicitly chosen to proceed through a two-step override. Downstream engines continue but mark every score they produce as provisional until the underlying issue is resolved.
Staleness
A passing check doesn't stay meaningful indefinitely. After 60 days, WaVES shows a soft nudge to re-verify. This is informational only, meaning, it doesn't re-block a passing project, but it prompts confirmation that the status is still accurate.
How it connects to the other engines
The gate state propagates automatically. No other engine re-derives its own compliance check, they all read the same shared state so a change here is immediately visible everywhere.
See this against your own project's numbers
The Property Viability Engine runs this logic against your actual location, standard, and size, free without limitation.
Check Compliance For FreeQuestions people also ask
Do I need to create an account to use the Compliance Gate?
You need an active Enterprise account. The Compliance Gate isn't part of the self-serve Free or Pro tier, it's sold as part of Enterprise access, contact the team to set that up.
Can I dismiss a failing compliance gate?
No. There is no dismiss option. The blocked state clears only when you re-run the check and all five gates genuinely pass. You can choose to proceed via an explicit override, but that marks all downstream scores as provisional rather than clearing the flag.
What happens if I override a failing gate?
Your project moves to a provisional state. Every downstream engine; the Property Viability Engine, Financial Decision Engine, and others, all of them will surface that flag on every score they produce until the underlying issue is resolved and the gate is re-run and passes.
Hit a confusing step, or something missing? Tell us.