Code Violation Negotiations

[Ceasar Blackman]

Hey Bp, 

I have a duplex i am looking in Lake County FL, its currently listed for sale from an investor about 45 minutes outside of Clermont, FL. It is in a good school zone and couldn't be any closer as its nearly across the street. It was bored up for a long time, then was sold in 2014, they put some work into it and was rented until Feb 2015. It has since been bored up, the county has several violation tagged on the property such as health hazards, sewer and overall poor workman ship. I called the code enforcement officer to get a better scope on the property. She informed me that not only are there violations that need to be fixed before it is certified for occupancy, but there is a $250 per day fine accruing since July 1. So right now we are about $24,500. 

The listing says that they would reduce the price only based upon fixing the issues and such, but the owner has raised the price about 15k trying to offset the reduction. Besides trying to reduce the price based up the repairs, i think the main way to squeeze some value would be trying to settle with the city on the Code Violations. I want to know does anyone have a good rule of thumb when it comes to negotiations something like this ? When i asked the code enforcement about a possible reduction she mentioned i could petition for a reduction or wave the fines. How likely is that ? The property is also behind on taxes for 2 years. 

They are currently asking about 145k for the duplex each side can rent for about 900 easy.

In an ideal world when i have a plan to attack these issues i want to propose this property to a mentor of mine and see if maybe we can partner on it. 

Pic courtesy of the nice code enforcement agent 

[Matthew B.]

Sorry, I thought you said you were dealing with a city. Normally if you talk with the person in charge of code violations they will give you an idea of how much they will settle for. I've never had a municipality enforce the entire amount on the new owner. They usually settle for their costs with a stipulation that the violations will be corrected within a certain period of time.