Why This Shows Up in the Offer
A buyer's number is finished value less the cost of getting there. Finished value on a Louisville property that qualifies can include a five-year deferral of the improvement value from the taxable assessment.
That is a real component of what the repaired asset is worth, and it is invisible to anybody who has not encountered Section 172B or Metro's Chapter 154. The full position is on our page covering the moratorium and the lien.
What Is the Question to Ask?
The Buyer Who Prices It In
Their finished value is higher, which usually makes their offer higher. They will also, if they are any good, tell you that the benefit depends on the application preceding the work, because it affects them as much as it affects you.
That is a buyer whose interest and yours briefly align: neither of you wants a contractor starting before the paperwork.
The Buyer Who Wants You to Start Work First
Worth pausing on, because it sounds helpful. Any proposal that you get repairs underway before closing, or before anything is applied for, may extinguish the benefit for whoever ends up owning the property.
The question that catches it: if I do that, what happens to the moratorium. A buyer who knows will stop you; one who does not will not understand the question.
The Buyer Who Has Not Searched the Clerk
Separate and equally consequential. Metro liens for civil fines, enforcement charges, abatement costs and the fifteen per cent administrative addition are recorded in the office of the County Clerk.
They are public. A buyer who has not looked is pricing a title they have not seen, and the number will move when their own searches run.
Should I Search It Myself First?
The Buyer Who Asks How Long It Has Been Empty
A good sign, because there is only one reason to ask. Metro's vacant and abandoned classification requires, among other things, a Code Enforcement Officer's determination that the property has been vacant for at least one year.
A buyer checking that is checking how much room remains before the enforcement machinery engages, which is a question that affects what they can safely plan.
Contract Assigners
Some parties sign to buy and sell the contract on before closing. On a property where a tax application should be made early and a lien position may be accruing, that delay is not neutral.
The question that catches it: which entity will appear on the deed. A principal buyer gives you a name you can search in the same records.
The Records Worth Pulling
The PVA record. Year built, assessment and taxing district. Three facts, one lookup, free.
The County Clerk. For anything recorded against the property.
Metro's permitting department. Which moratorium category your address falls in, and whether work already done affects it.
The same clerk's records for the buyer's entity. What a firm has actually taken title to describes it better than its marketing does.
Where We Fit, and Where We Do Not
We buy as principal, in our own entity, with our own funds, and we take title. We do not assign contracts. Ask us what we assumed about the tax position and the answer should be specific.
We are frequently not the right answer. Where the frame came through, the moratorium is still available and the finished value carries the work, repairing beats selling and the combination of those three is common in this city. Our written figure says so when the numbers point there. What happens from there is on our page about how the process actually runs.
Questions About Buyers
One Offer Is Far Above the Others.
Ask what each assumed about the finished value and the tax position. That single component explains a good deal of the spread here.
A Buyer Says the Moratorium Is Irrelevant.
It may be, if the house is under twenty-five years old or the spend will not reach the threshold. Ask which of those they mean; a vague answer means they have not checked.
Does a Buyer Need a Licence?
Not to buy as a principal and take title. Marketing property on behalf of others requires a Kentucky real estate licence, and the state lookup is free.