Chicago Property - Building Code Violations

[Xavier Y.]

Hello BPers,

I have question regarding a property we are looking at and need help as to how to navigate through this issue. The property has been vacant for a while. The sellers had some building violations regarding maintenance (they had to clean it up and make it safe for the community). Basically, maintain it up to a certain level required by Cook county for vacant properties. Well, they failed to do that multiple times and the city fined them. When they were not paying the fines the city of Chicago issued a notice that they were going to take over the property and demolish the building. I believe at that point the sellers went to court and paid the fines, but they don't know the current status of the property: is the city going through with the demolition and/or does the city actually own the property? I pulled up the record of deed and the sellers' names are still on the deed.

I also pulled up the Building Violations records online for the particular property and below are the inspection/violation dates. As you can see they are "closed" and the sellers have not heard from the city about any other incident.

01/03/2013	CLOSED	DEMO COURT
09/19/2012	CLOSED	DEMO COURT
03/22/2012	CLOSED	CHECKLIST INSPECTION

What we want to make sure is that there are no other incidents pending and that the city of Chicago doesn't own the property and are not planning on going through with the demolition. I have heard that Chicago is slow to get through building processes like permits and violations. So, could there be a pending incident that has not made it to the Building Violation records online? Also, does anyone out there know who we could contact from the city of Chicago that would have information regarding the status of the demolition and/or updates of ownership? Any insight would greatly help us out. We just want to get more information on these incidents and make sure it's a good deal before we tie up this property.