Sell a Fire Damaged House in the Franklin County Suburbs and Townships

Who Can Ask For a Parcel

Section 323.78 is specific about it. Where the treasurer has invoked the alternative redemption period, and where a municipal corporation, a township, the county, a school district, a community development organisation or a county land reutilization corporation has requested title, the court or board must order redemption forever terminated after that period and the parcel transferred by deed directly to the requesting body.

Six categories. Not one land bank, six kinds of body, and every one of them exists in quantity in this county. The full position is on our page covering losing the house without selling it.

Does a Request Make the Outcome Certain?

The School District Is the Surprising One

Most owners can imagine a land bank or a city wanting a parcel. A school district appearing on that list surprises people, and it is there in the statute alongside the rest.

The practical point is not to guess which body might be interested in your property. It is that the range of potential requesters is wider than anyone assumes, so an owner who reasons that nobody would want their particular house is reasoning from a list of one.

What If Nobody Requests It?

We publish no assessment of whether any body has requested a particular parcel, or of what any jurisdiction here intends. The county holds those records and each body decides for itself.

Nothing About This Stops at the City Line

Both routes are county or state provisions. Whitehall, Reynoldsburg, Bexley, Grandview Heights, Upper Arlington, Worthington, Westerville, Gahanna, Dublin, Hilliard, Grove City, Canal Winchester and Groveport are separate municipalities, and Prairie, Madison, Franklin, Clinton, Mifflin, Truro and Jefferson are among the townships, and the provisions reach all of them.

What is local is code enforcement, which each jurisdiction runs itself with its own inspectors and standards. The county auditor's parcel record names which one has your address, free.

Newer Housing Burns Differently

Much of the suburban stock here is post-war and later, built with engineered roof trusses and floor systems. Those come out whole once heat has compromised the connections rather than being repaired in sections, so a fire reaching the roof structure more often produces a replacement than the same fire in older city housing.

Where a house sits on a slab, heat damage to it does not show and becomes the largest unknown on the file. Where there is a basement, the structure can be examined from beneath, which removes a good deal of that uncertainty and is worth doing early.

Conspicuous Sooner Out Here

On a suburban street where every other house is occupied and maintained, a burned building is noticed immediately, and smaller jurisdictions are frequently quicker to respond than larger ones rather than slower.

That is a timetable rather than a threat. The informal window in which nothing happens is shorter here than in parts of the city where vacancy is ordinary.

The County in Context

Where strong values remove most of the time pressure, see our page about Clintonville and the northwest. Where the county routes are most live, see our page for Franklinton and the Hilltop.

The Sections That Cross Every Boundary Here

Section 323.78 names the six categories of body that may request title and sets the 28 day redemption period after journalizing. Section 323.66 gives the board of revision jurisdiction and the power to prepare its own orders of sale and deed forms, and section 323.67 provides for the abandoned land list.

Section 3767.41 applies statewide to nuisance buildings, section 3767.50 to blighted parcels under section 1.08, and sections 5721.17 and 5723.18 govern distribution and forfeiture.

Suburb and Township Questions