Guide · May 6, 2024 · 3 min read
Code violations do not have to kill the sale.
A violation notice makes a house harder to finance, not impossible to sell. Once you know which of the three exits you are taking, the notice stops running your calendar.
A code violation is the city's way of saying a property does not meet current building, health, or safety standards. Salt Lake City enforces them with notices, deadlines, re-inspections, and eventually fines that accrue while the problem stands. If you are trying to sell a house that carries one, the violation matters less for what it says about the house than for what it does to your pool of buyers.
Why violations stall sales
The quiet mechanism is financing. Most buyers borrow, and lenders are cautious about collateral with open safety violations; FHA and VA appraisals in particular flag health-and-safety items and require them fixed before the loan funds. So an open violation quietly removes most financed buyers from your market before price is even discussed. The buyers who remain read the notice as a warning that more is wrong than the notice says, and offer accordingly.
There is also the compounding problem: violations do not pause while you sell. Fines accrue, deadlines pass, and a re-inspection can add items. A violation is the rare house problem that gets more expensive by standing still.
The violations we see most in Utah houses
- Missing or dead smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, the cheapest violation to earn and to fix
- Electrical work done without permits: exposed wiring, overloaded panels, circuits that were never inspected
- Missing ground-fault (GFCI) outlets in kitchens, bathrooms, and outdoor locations
- Plumbing deficiencies, from active leaks to water heaters installed without a permit
- Polybutylene supply piping, which insurers dislike because it fails under pressure
- Stairs and decks without compliant handrails or with rotted structure
- Unpermitted additions and basement apartments, common along the Wasatch Front, where the "violation" is the whole room
- Structural items: notched joists, improper framing, foundation movement
One of these is a Saturday errand. Several of them together, on a house that also needs a roof or a furnace, is a renovation project with a permit history to untangle.
Your three exits, priced honestly
Fix everything, then list. Right when the violations are small and the house is otherwise strong. You pay for the repairs, the permits, and the months, and you collect retail when it sells. If the repair list fits on one hand, this usually nets the most.
List it as-is anyway. You can sell as-is on the open market, and in a hot market it is sometimes sensible, but you are selling into the thinned buyer pool described above. Expect investor offers at investor prices, with the showings, contingencies, and sixty-day timeline of a retail sale still attached.
Sell it as-is to a cash buyer. No lender, so the financing problem disappears; the violations become a line in the price instead of a veto. We buy houses as-is with open violation cases, unpermitted work, and accrued fines, price the remediation into one written number, and close in about seven days, before the next re-inspection date arrives. The trade-off is the same one that page states plainly: the number is below what a fully repaired, fully permitted house would fetch. What you are buying with the discount is the exit itself, on a timeline you pick.
What we need from you
The violation notice, and nothing else. You do not need to fix anything, pull permits, or negotiate with the city first; we have taken over open cases before and the fines are settled at closing like any other lien. If you want to know what your house is worth as it stands, notice and all, request a cash offer and have a written number inside 24 hours.
Find out what your house is worth in cash. Free, and no strings.
One phone call, or one short form. You'll have a real number by this time tomorrow.
Tell us about the house
Where the house is, your name, and a number we can reach you on. We call back within one business day, and you're free to say no.