Check One: Is It Registered, and On What Date
The City's property information tool shows whether a building is registered as vacant. If yours is, find the anniversary of the date the City found it vacant, because that is when the next annual charge of $7,228.70 falls.
That date is a negotiating fact rather than a detail. It tells you how much time you have before another year's fee lands, and it tells any buyer the same thing.
Why Should I Look This up Myself?
Check Two: Condemned or Not
This decides which City route the property is on, and the two are genuinely different projects.
Not condemned means the Truth in Housing route: a licensed evaluator produces a full report before the property may be shown, listing required repairs a buyer can take on and complete within 90 days of closing.
Condemned means the code compliance route: an inspection and repairs before anyone may live there, with a Certificate of Code Compliance at the end that substitutes for the Truth in Housing report for up to a year.
Which Is Better for Me as a Seller?
The Deadline You May Already Be Inside
If a registration order or renewal letter has arrived, you have 90 days from it to call and schedule a Restoration Agreement appointment. Entering one can hold the annual fee in abeyance for the year.
We raise it first because it is time-limited and because it is worth more than anything we could negotiate on price. An owner who calls inside the window can suspend a seven thousand dollar charge. One who does not pays it. The full position is on our page covering TISH, vacancy and code compliance.
What We Do Next
The records. The county property record for ownership, year built and lot dimensions, the recorder for the deed and any lien, and the City's information tool for the TISH history, permit record and vacant building status.
The structure. Whether the framing came through, and whether the era means it can be repaired in sections or comes out whole. On pre-war dimensional lumber more is often salvageable than a buyer assumes.
The season. Whether the house has been through a winter unheated, and what that has added on top of the fire. It is a real number here and it is separate from the fire damage.
What Comes Back
A written figure with every line showing: what a finished house on that lot is worth, the cost of getting there by whichever City route applies, the registration fee across a realistic timeline, carrying cost, the deed tax, and margin.
What If the Numbers Say Repair Rather Than Sell?
Then It Is Your Call
No deadline from us, though the City's deadlines are real and we will point them out. Minnesota closes through title companies and a clean file moves quickly. What slows a Minneapolis file is an evaluation nobody ordered, a registration nobody addressed, and title.
Compare figures if you want to. The questions on our page about how to tell local cash buyers apart work on us as much as on anyone.
Things That Never Happen
No fee at any stage. No request that you order the evaluation, complete repairs, board the property or clear the site first — those are costs we price in. No requirement that your claim be settled. No assignment of the contract to a third party. And no suggestion that you delay dealing with the City, which in this city costs you money every month.
Common Questions About the Process
How Long Does It Take?
Address to written figure is usually a few days. Closing depends on which City route applies and on title. The evaluation itself is generally quick to arrange once you have chosen an evaluator.
Do I Need to Be in Minnesota?
No. Out-of-state owners are common on inherited property and remote closing through the title company is routine.
I Have Not Done Either Lookup.
Then send the address and we will do both and tell you what they say. They are public records and there is no advantage to us in you not having them.