Condemned property
A condemned property is one the city has declared unfit for human occupancy. People must leave, and it cannot lawfully be lived in again until the problems are fixed and the city says so.
What it is not#
Not a demolition order. Condemnation says the building cannot be occupied as it stands. Most condemned buildings are repairable, and a great many are repaired.
Demolition is a separate determination, made where a structure is beyond economical repair or presents a hazard that cannot otherwise be addressed.
Not eminent domain. Confusingly, "condemnation" also describes a government taking property for public use with compensation. That is a completely different proceeding. This page is about the housing sense.
What triggers it#
Conditions making the building genuinely unsafe or unsanitary — no heat in winter, no water, sewage backup, structural failure, fire damage, serious electrical hazard, severe infestation.
The threshold is habitability, not tidiness. A house can carry a long list of correction orders without being condemned.
Tenants#
They must vacate, and Minnesota gives them specific protection.
Where a tenant leaves because the building was legally condemned for reasons not caused by their own conduct, the landlord must return the security deposit within five days rather than the usual three weeks.
Cities also generally address relocation where occupants are displaced, and tenants in that position should contact a legal aid organisation promptly — condemnation is one of the situations where a tenant has more rights than they assume.
Getting it lifted#
Bring the property into compliance and pass inspection.
In Minneapolis the city then issues a Certificate of Code Compliance, valid for up to one year from issue.
That certificate does something else worth knowing: it exempts the property from needing a Truth in Sale of Housing report when sold. A condemned property brought back into compliance carries the certificate instead of a TISH evaluation.
The financial spiral#
Condemnation is expensive in ways that compound.
The building generates no income. It is now vacant, which in Minneapolis means registration in the vacant building programme and its annual fee. Insurance coverage narrows or lapses under the policy's vacancy provisions. The repairs required to lift the condemnation are, by definition, substantial.
An owner without capital at that point has a property costing money, producing nothing, and deteriorating further. That is the ordinary route from condemnation to forfeiture, and it runs on holding cost rather than on any single decision.
For a buyer#
Condemned properties trade, and cheaply.
The arithmetic is the cost of compliance against the value after. What catches buyers is the holding cost during — registration fees, insurance, taxes and utilities on a building nobody can occupy while the work is done.