Open code violation

01How it is defined in LeadCounty

The city has an open code-enforcement case (active or in court).

02How many are on the list today

03Why it matters

Code cases come with deadlines and fines. Many owners would rather sell than pay for the repairs.

04Where it shows up in public records

City and township code-enforcement departments; many large cities publish their cases.

05How to find open code violation in 3 steps

• Step 1, find the record: city and township code-enforcement departments; many large cities publish their cases.
• Step 2, match it to the property: join the record to the parcel by its parcel number and the owner's name and address, so you know which house it belongs to.
• Step 3, add a second reason: stack open code violation with another list to see which owners have more than one reason to sell. LeadCounty does steps 1 and 2 for every property each week.

06How we count it

LeadCounty counts open code violation from each county's own records and shows the number for every county in the table above, refreshed weekly. A county that does not publish the record shows no count rather than a guess.

07How to use it

• Read the case type: tall grass is not the same as an unsafe-structure order.
• Offer an as-is sale that takes the repair off the owner's hands.

08Best stacks with open code violation

One list gives you a reason; two or three lists together give you owners with several reasons at once. The stacks that work best with open code violation:

• Open code violation + absentee owner: the owner gets the tax bill somewhere else, so the house is less personal to them.
• Open code violation + owned 15+ years: 15+ years of ownership usually means paid-down debt and real equity.