How This Works, Step by Step

Question One: When Did the Fire Happen?

This is the only market we work in where the date is the first question rather than a detail, and the reason is statutory. Florida bars an initial or reopened property claim unless notice reached the insurer within one year of the date of loss, and a supplemental claim at eighteen months.

So the date tells us something before anything else does. A fire six weeks ago sits comfortably inside the window. A fire eleven months ago that has never been reported is a different conversation entirely, and the right advice in that situation is to speak to a public adjuster or a lawyer this week rather than to compare cash offers.

Why Does a Buyer Care When the Fire Happened?

We are not adjusters and take no part of your claim. But telling you the clock is nearly out is free, and it is the kind of thing that changes what an owner decides to do next.

Question Two: What Kind of Property Is It?

Not a formality here either. The property type decides two separate things.

Your closing cost. The Miami-Dade deed tax runs at $0.60 per $100 on a document transferring only a single-family dwelling and $1.05 per $100 on everything else, because the county surtax exempts single-family and nothing more. On the same sale price that is a 75 per cent difference in the tax line.

Whether you control the structure. On a condominium or a unit in a shared building, the association controls restoration of the structure. Your unit's timeline is then partly outside your hands, and a buyer is pricing the association's position as much as yours.

Where Do I Check My Property's Classification?

Question Three: How Far Did the Fire Get?

Then the ordinary one. What burned, what the water reached, whether the roof structure was involved, whether the shell survived.

The local wrinkle is the rebuild standard. Anything replaced in this county has to meet High-Velocity Hurricane Zone requirements, which puts replacement cost per square foot above the national figures an out-of-market buyer will be working from. That is why local and non-local offers on the same property so often differ by more than the damage explains.

What We Check After That

The folio record for the parcel, the classification and the ownership. The Official Records held by the Clerk of the Court for the deed, the mortgage and any lien. The municipal or county building department for permit history, open violations and whether any unsafe structure process has begun. And, where the property sits in a mapped flood zone or under a design or historic review regime, what that adds.

What Comes Back

A written figure with every line showing: what a finished, code-compliant property there is worth, what building it costs to the zone standard, clearance where that is the route, carrying cost, the deed tax at whichever rate applies to your property type, and margin.

What If the Figure Says Do Something Else?

Things That Never Happen

No fee at any stage. No request that you clear the property, board it, obtain a survey or make any repair first — those are our costs. No requirement that your claim be settled, though we will ask whether it was reported. No assignment of the contract to a third party. And nothing asked of you that involves withholding a material fact from a buyer, which in Florida is a duty an as-is clause does not remove.

Compare figures if you want to. The two questions on our page about how to tell local cash buyers apart eliminate most of a long list in one phone call, and the statutory position is on our page covering Florida claim deadlines and disclosure rules.

Common Questions About the Process