Sell a Fire Damaged House in Tampa
We Buy Fire Damaged Houses In Tampa.
In Tampa, a fire damaged house can be sold as-is and for cash, with no repairs and no clean-out — but the house can survive the fire and still be impossible to live in, and the thing standing between an owner and the front door is usually a meter on the wall. We closed in Wimauma, in south Hillsborough County, after that family spent more than a year fighting their insurance company first.
If you need to sell your fire damaged house fast in the Tampa Bay area, start with what the utility and the county require. The condition of the drywall is rarely what's holding you up.
5.0 stars from 26 reviews. BBB Accredited. A+ rating. We pay all closing costs.
Fire Damaged Home in Tampa? Get a Fair Offer Today
Request a cash offer from Fire Cash Buyer and we'll give you a call to scheduled when we can walk it. Then give you an offer in 24 hours
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He Needed To Sell His Fire Damaged House. Nobody Called Him Back.
Fire crews cut power. Where wiring is left exposed, the meter comes off the wall, and it does not go back on because you ask nicely.
An owner in the 33634 ZIP described his to us in detail. The fire destroyed the detached studio he was living in behind his mother's house, along with storage sheds holding his tools. The main house came out of it with broken windows, melted soffit and roof damage. Then the meter was pulled.
What stood between him and electricity, as he understood it, was a licensed electrician terminating the feed, bringing it up to code and adding an exterior shutoff. He couldn't pay for any of it. He was out of work. Four months after the fire he was still on that property with no power.
That gap is the whole problem in a sentence. The structure survived. The house is uninhabitable anyway. And nothing about the property is worth anything until the power question has an answer.
We don't publish the reconnection requirement here, because it isn't one rule — it's the utility's rule plus your jurisdiction's rule, and the City of Tampa and unincorporated Hillsborough don't always match. Get it yourself, in writing, from two places. Call Tampa Electric (TECO) and ask what they require before service is restored to a property after a fire, and whether a passed electrical inspection comes first. Then call Hillsborough County Development Services, or your city's building department if you're inside city limits, and ask whether an electrical permit is required, what it costs, and who is allowed to pull it. Ask both to email the answer — you'll need it twice, once to get the power on and once at the closing table
Why Cash Buyers For Fire Damaged Homes Matter More Here
Cash matters because of the lender, not the buyer.
A mortgage backed by the FHA, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac requires the house to be safe and habitable. A burned house is neither. So a retail buyer with financing reaches the appraisal, the appraisal comes back subject to repairs, and the deal dies six weeks in — after you've taken the house off the market and stopped talking to anyone else.
That's why fire damaged homes in this market either sell to a cash buyer or sit
Can I Sell My Fire Damaged Home While The Insurer Is Still Fighting Me?
Often, yes — and the Wimauma purchase is why we ask about it early.
Those owners assumed the damage would be the hard part. It wasn't. Their carrier disputed how bad the fire was, disputed what their belongings were worth, and disputed parts of the policy itself. They hired a lawyer. The fight ran past a year. They won, and the attorney took more than 30% of what the extra fight recovered.
We stayed in contact the whole time with no offer on the table, because there was nothing to make an offer about until the legal side finished. Their children had birthdays. His mother came through a health problem. His wife found out she was pregnant again. He started a new job. All of it happened while a burned house sat waiting.
Here's what's worth knowing if you're mid-fight now: the claim and the sale don't always have to happen in that order. In many Florida policies the claim money follows the policyholder rather than the building
Whether yours does is a question about your policy, not about Florida generally, and we're not the right people to answer it. Read the loss settlement and mortgagee sections of your own policy, or ask your adjuster to answer it to you in writing before you rely on it. If your carrier has gone quiet, the Florida Department of Financial Services runs a free residentialproperty mediation program
A Demolition Order Can Land Before You've Decided Anything
A mobile home owner north of Tampa contacted us two weeks after his fire. He wrote in Spanish; his search was "ayudas para víctimas de incendio."
Twelve years of ownership, free and clear. No insurance. He told us the fire was set deliberately, the damage was severe, the neighbouring property was hit, and the city had already ordered demolition. He also told us he wasn't selling. We left him alone.
Note the sequence, because it repeats across this metro. The order arrived first. Before the money. Before the decision. If something official is sitting on your counter, the clock on it isn't yours to set.
We won't print an ordinance name or a fine schedule here — they differ between the City of Tampa, unincorporated Hillsborough and Pasco County, and they're amended. Call code enforcement for the jurisdiction your address actually sits in and ask four things: whether an unsafe or dangerous structure case is open on the parcel; what the notice period is and when it expires; whether fines are accruing daily; and whether those fines attach as a lien that has to clear before a sale can close. Get the case number and put it in writing.
Sell My Fire Damaged House Fast In Tampa: What Sets The Clock
Our real numbers, across the whole pipeline: the typical sale runs 14 days, the fastest closed in 1 day, and the slowest took 157.
Slow ones are usually probate, an old lien, or a claim that has to settle first. None of those make us walk away.
The Tampa-specific delay owners don't predict is an open permit — a restoration somebody started, billed for, and abandoned. Ask the building department whether one is open on your address and what closes it out. An open permit discovered in week three of a closing is how deals die.
Address in. A real person calls you, usually within a day.
We look at the house. You don't have to be there — about half the properties we assess, we assess without the owner present.
Number back within 24 hours, with the repair estimate it came from.
Title ordered; payoffs, liens and any open code case identified in parallel.
Close through a title company. You pay nothing.
What Do Cash Buyers Pay For A Burned House In Hillsborough County?
We won't guess it over the phone, and nobody honest will. What we can tell you: where the seller names a figure first, we land at a median of 88% of the asking price.
Based on 19 sales. Figure as of Q3 2026. Ask us for the current number.
Sellers typically ask around half of the automated online value before anyone speaks to them — they've already discounted it in their own heads. The agreed number lands lower again, and that distance isn't cleverness on our side. It's demolition, a roof, full smoke remediation and months of carrying costs, noneof which an automated valuation has ever modelled.
We charge nothing. No commission, no repair holdback, no closing costs, no clean-out.
Your Hillsborough Property Taxes Are Still Running
Assessment here runs through the Hillsborough County Property Appraiser — separate from the city, and separate from your insurer. A burned house can still be assessed as the house it used to be.
Florida also has a route most owners never hear about. Under section 197.319 of the Florida Statutes, a home left uninhabitable for at least 30 days by a catastrophic event may qualify for a refund of part of that year's property taxes. A fire counts. Damage the owner caused deliberately does not.
The application goes to the Property Appraiser on state form DR-465, and the deadline is March 1 of the year after the fire. Don't take our word for whether your situation qualifies — call the Hillsborough County Property Appraiser, describe the fire and the dates the house stood empty, and ask them directly. Bring utility bills, insurance paperwork, contractor statements or permit records as proof of the uninhabitable period.
Three Tampa-area Fires, Three Different Causes
Four numbers, and we show you all four.
A detached studio in Tampa. Total loss, tools and sheds gone with it.
An electrical fire that started in a Florida room in Pasco County. Severe, uninsured, and when we asked what the owner wanted for the house he answered "unknown."
A mobile home lost to a deliberate fire, with a demolition order attached.
Not one of those is a kitchen fire. The national charts say kitchen. This metro keeps handing us something else. Across 186 documented fires in our own records, more start in the garage than the kitchen, and one in five of the houses we buy has a hole cut in the roof by the fire department.
If You'd Rather Keep It
Some owners should. If the damage is partial, the claim is being paid and the contractor is real, rebuilding beats selling and we'll say so on the phone.
The check is simple. Ask your contractor for a written scope with a completion date in it. If he won't put a date in writing, you already know what the next nine months look like.
How To Check A Tampa Cash Buyer
Three of our reviewers said, unprompted, that they were afraid of being scammed. That's a healthy instinct here.
Ask how many fire damaged houses they've bought and where. Ours: 798 worked across 38 states, 6 bought in Florida. Ask them to name the Florida cities.
Ask for proof of funds before you sign anything.
Ask what they'd do about a pulled meter and an open permit. It's a fast way to find out whether they've closed a fire property in this county before.
Ask whether they're buying or reselling your contract. We buy.
If someone offers you a number far above everyone else, be careful rather than pleased. We've watched sellers take a big promise from a company with no reviews and no track record, then get cut after the inspection.
If You Don't Need An Offer
If what you need is somewhere to sleep, the power back on, debris hauled or an insurer who answers, that isn't an acquisition and we won't dress it up as one. It's free, at housefiresolutions.com, and nobody there is trying to buy your house.
Questions Tampa Owners Ask
Can I sell with the power still off and the meter pulled?
Yes. We buy in that condition routinely. Restoring service is our problem after closing, not a precondition of the sale.
The house is still standing. Is it worth less than a total loss?
Sometimes it's worth more, sometimes less. A standing structure with smoke through the framing can cost more to make safe than a clean lot. We price the whole building, not the burned part.
Do I have to clean it out first?
No. Leave what you don't want. If there are belongings inside you do want, tell us and we work around them.
My mobile home burned and no carrier would insure it. Can you still buy?
Yes. Older Florida manufactured homes are often uninsurable, which is exactly why owners get stuck with them.
Can I sell a fire damaged home I rent out in Hillsborough or Pasco?
Yes. If you claimed the loss, ask your CPA about a Section 1033 exchange — a fire counts as an involuntary conversion and the rules differ from a 1031.
The fire was over a year ago. Too late?
Not to sell. It may be too late for the insurance claim — Florida's notice deadline sits in section 627.70132 of the Florida Statutes and runs from the day of the fire. Read the Florida page.
Does this apply in Pinellas, Pasco or Polk?
Partly. The state law does. The county and city requirements don't. Read the Lakeland page for Polk.
Fire Cash Buyer
Purchases fire damaged property throughout the Tampa Bay area and in 38 states. 798 properties worked. 26 reviews, 5.0 stars. BBB Accredited, A+.
Fire Damaged Home in Tampa? Get a Fair Offer Today
Request a cash offer from Fire Cash Buyer and we'll give you a call to scheduled when we can walk it. Then give you an offer in 24 hours