If your house has caught fire, that’s probably been a traumatic experience and it’s not unusual to simply not want to even think about repairing it, and simply sell it and try to move on with your life. This is always going to be a little tricky as repairing a fire-damaged home is a long project and quite often a very expensive one.
It can also often be the case that insurers will try to wriggle out of a fire damage claim and at a minimum they will likely employ a loss adjuster which is likely going to take months to receive a final report. If the property was unoccupied when the fire happened, the insurers will almost always try to get out of paying.
If this has been the case, you may simply not have the option to repair and selling to a company like ourselves is generally a little easier than selling a fire-damaged property on the open market.
What other options are there for selling a fire-damaged house
Fire-damaged houses are regularly sent to auction, but this is hit and miss and if you still have a mortgage you are unlikely to recoup even close to the market value.
However, if you do want to try and sell your fire damaged house it on the open market you should follow these steps.
- Tidy up the property as best you can
This doesn’t mean calling in a builder straight away, it does mean cleaning it as best you can and if you can get rid of the smell of smoke.
- Talk to your insurers, it’s possible they will pay for a lot of the repairs.
And they could even cover the cost of the cleaning, but you should try them straight away.
- Get a valuation
And be realistic, it’s going to have lost a lot of value. Be prepared, this is going to sting.
So What Next?
Now that you’re ready to sell your property, you will have to advertise it for sale, you will need to disclose that it has been fire-damaged.
This will not interest a lot of private buyers and most people looking to buy the house will be planning on repairing it to make a profit. Still, they will likely have access to teams of professionals who know how to repair fire damage and will pay significantly less as a regular business client than a one-off customer.
