Route One: Repair What Stands
The demolition question never arises. Chapter 17.106 attaches to demolition permit applications. No demolition permit, no deconstruction requirement, whatever year the house was built.
Nothing is added to your assessment. Under the Oregon system ordinary maintenance and repair are not added to assessed value, so your basis continues growing at the capped rate as though nothing had happened.
The constraint is structural. This route exists only where the frame came through. On older Portland stock, where dimensional lumber chars rather than failing at connections, it does so more often than owners expect.
How Do I Find out Whether It Is Available?
Route Two: Take It Down and Build
The method may not be your choice. Where the structure was built in 1940 or earlier, or is a designated historic resource of any age, it must be deconstructed by a Certified Deconstruction Contractor rather than mechanically demolished. The full position is on our page covering deconstruction and the tax basis.
The paperwork is front-loaded. A demolition permit application is not complete without a Pre-Deconstruction Form, and a Post-Deconstruction Form is required before the permit can be finalled.
The new house is added to your assessment. New improvements are an exception to the 103 per cent cap, and the fire loss cannot be treated as a retirement to offset them.
Is Route Two Ever the Right Answer?
Costing Them Against Each Other
The comparison most owners never make properly, because the two routes have costs in different places.
Route one carries: structural repair, replacement of finishes and services, and the risk that opening the building reveals more than the report found.
Route two carries: hand deconstruction where the ordinance applies, a longer programme before the site is clear, full construction cost, and a permanently higher assessment.
The permit fee itself is not a differentiator. The city sets a fixed fee for a demolition permit and how the building comes down does not change the price.
What We Do With Your Address
The build year. First, from the county assessor record, because it decides whether route two carries the deconstruction cost at all.
Designation. Separately, because it reaches properties the year threshold would miss.
The structure. Whether route one is available, which is the question everything else depends on.
The records. The county recorder for the deed and any liens, and the permit history for the property.
What Comes Back
A written figure with each line visible: finished value, cost of the work, carrying cost and margin. Where the ordinance applies, our cost line reflects deconstruction rather than demolition, and we will say so rather than quoting the cheaper method and revising later.
What If Repairing Beats Selling?
What Never Happens
No fee at any stage. No request that you clear the site, board it beyond making it safe, commission a report or repair anything first. No requirement that your claim be settled. No assignment of the contract to a third party. And we never ask a seller to obtain the demolition permit or take the building down before closing, because on a covered property that means you paying for hand deconstruction so we can buy a cleared lot.
Common Questions About the Process
How Long Does It Take?
Address to written figure is usually a few days. Closing depends on title. The insurance claim does not have to be settled first.
Do I Need to Be in Oregon?
No. Out-of-state owners are common on inherited property and remote closing is routine.
Can I Compare You Against Others?
Please do. The question on our page about how to tell local cash buyers apart applies to us the same as to anyone.