Two different situations end up in the same place. In one, somebody started a
project and ran out of road — money, a contractor, a lender, patience. In the
other, a building has been standing long enough that the county has taken a
formal position on whether it should still be standing at all.
Both leave an owner holding something that is expensive to keep and very hard
to sell. Both are ours to take on.
What an unsafe structure case actually does
An unsafe structure violation is not a letter you can file away. It starts a
process with dates in it. There are hearings. There are deadlines to either
repair the building or demolish it. Fines run while the case is open, and they
do not stop because the owner cannot afford to act.
If it goes far enough, the county can carry out the demolition itself — and
the cost of that work, plus the fines that accumulated, is charged back to the
property. That is the part people do not see coming. The building is gone and
the bill is not.
A demolition order is the same family of problem, and we have bought through
one before: a Little Havana property with three buildings and an order on one of
them. We put our own attorney in front of the city before closing, agreed a plan,
and all three buildings came back — twelve units renovated rather than
replaced. That was the point. The zoning on that property was worth more than the
buildings standing on it, and demolition would have taken it with them.
Sometimes the answer runs the other way. Two condemned shells in Little Haiti,
both under orders and both with people living inside them, could not be saved and
should not have been. We closed anyway, found somewhere for the people inside to
go, negotiated a private demolition rather than letting the county do it and bill
the property, and then built new on the same ground with our general contractor
partners. Knowing which of those two a building is — worth fighting for, or
worth clearing — is most of the skill.
Why a half-finished building is so hard to sell
A stalled build carries problems a finished house does not:
- Permits expire. Work that stopped long enough has permits
that have lapsed, and reactivating them is its own process.
- Unpaid trades file liens. A contractor or supplier who
was not paid can attach a claim to the property, and those have to be resolved
before clean title passes.
- The work that exists has to be assessed. Somebody has to
determine what was built correctly, what was inspected, and what has to come
out. That is not a walkthrough; it is engineers and drawings.
- The lending is still there. Construction debt does not
pause because the build did. Interest runs on a building generating nothing.
Put together, that is why a stalled project sits. A retail buyer cannot get a
mortgage on it. Most cash buyers price it as a lot and walk away from the
building. Neither of those helps the person holding it.
What we actually do
We buy the project and take the position over. In practice that means dealing
with the debt on it — paying it off at closing, or negotiating a payoff, or
bringing in the financing needed to carry the job to completion. Repositioning
the debt is usually the step that makes the rest possible, because until the
lending is settled nobody can spend money on the building.
Covenant in lieu of unity of title
Some of this work is entitlement rather than construction. A
unity of title is a recorded instrument that binds two or more
parcels together so the local government treats them as one property. A
covenant in lieu of unity of title is the more flexible instrument
recorded in its place: it satisfies the same requirement while leaving room to treat
the parcels separately.
It is one of the routes to getting a second folio number issued, and a second
folio is what turns two halves of a building into two properties the county
recognises separately. On a Coconut Grove duplex, that process took us eighteen
months — longer than the construction did.
Then the ordinary work: getting permits live again, satisfying the violation
or the order, resolving liens through title, and building the thing out. We have
our own trades and we run our own jobs, which is the only reason taking on a
half-finished building is a sensible thing for us to do at all.
Where we are honest about the limits
Not every stalled project can be rescued. If what is owed against a building
is more than the finished thing will be worth, no buyer can make that arithmetic
work, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something. What we can
do in that case is tell you quickly, and tell you why, so you are not spending
another six months finding out.
We would also rather look at these early. Fines accrue, permits lapse further,
and an unsafe structure case that has been running for two years is a harder
problem than the same case at six months. If you are sitting on one of these,
the conversation costs nothing and it is better had now.
Common questions
Can you sell a property with an unsafe structure violation on it?
Yes, and it is bought and sold more often than people think. The violation and any fines attached to it stay with the property, so they get dealt with as part of the transaction rather than cleared beforehand. We buy in that condition and take the case on ourselves.
What happens if I just leave an unsafe structure case alone?
The case does not close on its own. Fines continue to run, and the county can ultimately carry out the demolition and charge the cost of the work and the accumulated fines back to the property. Waiting makes the number larger, not smaller.
Will you take over a construction project that already started?
Yes. That is work we specifically look for. We take the project over, deal with the debt on it, get the permits live again and build it out with our own trades. What we need first is what was built, what was permitted and what is owed.
What does 'repositioning the debt' mean?
It means the lending against the project has to be settled before anyone can spend money finishing it — usually paid off at closing, sometimes negotiated, sometimes replaced with financing that carries the job through completion. Which of those applies depends on the loan and the lender, and it is the first thing we look at.
What is a covenant in lieu of unity of title?
A unity of title is a recorded instrument that binds two or more parcels together so the local government treats them as a single property. A covenant in lieu of unity of title is the more flexible instrument recorded in its place — it satisfies the same requirement while leaving room to treat the parcels separately. In Miami-Dade it is one of the routes to having a second folio number issued.
How long does it take to get a second folio number in Miami-Dade?
There is no standard timeline, because it depends on the property, the zoning and what the city asks for along the way. On one Coconut Grove duplex it took us eighteen months of meetings, drawings and corrections — longer than the construction itself.
Do you buy properties with a demolition order?
We have. A demolition order does not automatically mean the building comes down. It means somebody has to engage with the case, which is what we do.
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Other guides
Selling a House in Probate · Inherited a House That Needs Work · When Heirs Disagree · Selling a Hoarder House · Open Permits & Violations · Spotting a Real Cash Buyer
