The first 48 hours after you find the damage
What you do right away protects your insurance claim, your price and your neighbors. Work through these in order:
- Don’t go in alone if someone may still be inside. Call the police from outside.
- File a police report and get the report number. Your insurer will usually want it.
- Photograph and video everything before you clean or fix anything: broken entry points, missing fixtures, cut pipes, the meter area, graffiti.
- Shut off the water at the curb or main if pipes were cut, and call the gas company if gas lines were disturbed.
- Secure the openings. Board broken windows and doors so weather and the next intruder stay out.
- Call your insurer and ask what the policy covers on a house in its current condition.
If you find people living in the house, the situation changes; the squatters’ rights guide explains how Ohio treats unauthorized occupants.
Stripped copper, wiring and fixtures
Metal theft is one of the most common and expensive kinds of damage to an empty house. Thieves cut copper supply lines, pull wiring from walls, and take water heaters, furnaces and air-conditioning units for scrap.
Ohio’s scrap metal law gives police something to work with. Under R.C. 4737.04, a scrap dealer must record the seller’s name and address, keep a copy of their ID, take a photo, and log the date, time, weight and vehicle plate. Dealers keep those records for at least a year (60 days once the state’s scrap registry is running) and photos for 60 days, and the rules are tightest for “special purchase articles,” which include wire and cable, utility equipment and burnt wire. A detailed police report with photos of what was taken gives investigators a chance to match it.
For the sale, theft like this means the house may have no working plumbing, electrical or heat, and a buyer using a mortgage will struggle to get it financed. Financed buyers usually need those systems to work.
Insurance on a vacant, damaged house
Insurance is often the hardest part. Many homeowners policies treat a long-vacant house differently from an occupied one, and coverage for vandalism or theft on an empty house can be limited or excluded. Read the vacancy and unoccupancy sections of your policy, and ask your agent before you assume a claim will be paid.
If the house will sit empty through the sale, a vacant-dwelling policy may be the right coverage. The vacant house insurance guide compares those policies. Any claim payment belongs to the policyholder, so settle the claim, or agree in writing who keeps it, before closing.
Code orders and demolition risk on an open house
An unsecured, damaged house draws the city’s attention. Ohio law lets cities order insecure, unsafe or structurally defective buildings repaired or removed, generally with 30 days’ certified-mail notice to owners and lienholders, and the costs can become a lien on the property (R.C. 715.26).
In Akron, reporting by Signal Akron found that vacancy, ignored orders, tax delinquency and police activity are common factors in houses that end up on the demolition list. Canton requires owners of non-owner-occupied properties to register every year under its Chapter 1351. Akron’s vacant building registration covers commercial and industrial buildings only, not houses. If an order has already been issued, see selling a house with code violations, and if the city has posted the house as unfit, see selling a condemned house.
Telling a buyer what happened
Vandalism belongs in the disclosure if you’re filling out Ohio’s Residential Property Disclosure Form. The form asks about known problems with the plumbing, electrical, heating and water systems, and a house with cut pipes or pulled wiring has all of those. Say what was taken, when, and what if anything was replaced, and keep the police report numbers handy. Estate fiduciaries and heirs who never lived there are among those exempt from the form, but a buyer will still ask, and a straight answer keeps the deal together.
Repair and relist, or sell as it stands
Repairing makes sense when the damage is cosmetic and limited: a few windows, a door, some paint and cleanup. Once the plumbing, wiring or furnace is gone, the repair becomes a partial rebuild, and it has to be done while the house stays empty and exposed.
A direct sale fits when you don’t live nearby, the house has been hit more than once, or the cost to restore systems would eat most of the value. Our page on selling a vacant house covers the wider costs of holding an empty property. To get a number on the house as it is today, tell us what happened.
