One Court, Several Code Regimes
Germantown, Collierville, Bartlett, Millington, Arlington and Lakeland are separately incorporated municipalities. Each adopts and enforces its own building, housing and related codes.
The Neighborhood Preservation Act works by enforcing those local codes, so which ordinances apply to your property depends on which municipality you are in, while the forum for an action under the Act remains a Shelby County one. The framework is on our page covering the private right of action.
Which City Actually Has My Address?
Enforcement Comes Earlier Out Here
Smaller, well-resourced municipalities tend to notice a damaged building faster than a large city department covering a much wider area, and to act on it earlier in the sequence.
For an owner that is mostly good news. Early contact from a building department is a chance to agree a timetable, and it happens well before anything a private party might file. What it removes is the assumption that nothing will happen for a long time.
Does That Make an Action More Likely or Less?
We publish no municipal requirements, enforcement practices or values for the individual Shelby County suburbs. Each administers its own and each will state its position for an address.
Stronger Values Change the Answer
Across much of the suburban ring finished values carry the cost of repair comfortably, which makes repairing better than selling more often than in the city.
On this stock we expect to lose files to rehabbers and to owners doing the work themselves, and we would rather say so at the start than negotiate toward a figure that was never going to be competitive.
Later Construction Decides the Rest
Much of the housing is post-war and later, built on slab with engineered roof trusses and floor systems that come out whole once heat has compromised the connections.
Where a house sits on a slab, heat damage to it is invisible and becomes the largest unknown on the file. An inspection addressing the slab specifically is worth commissioning, because buyers discount hardest for what they cannot rule out.
The Suburbs in Context
Where the same later stock sits inside the city, see our page about East Memphis and Hickory Hill. Where neither the Act nor the court reaches, see our page for across the state lines.
The Act Behind Every Municipal Code Here
Sections 13-6-101 to 13-6-108 of the Tennessee Code enforce whichever local codes apply. Section 13-6-102 defines the qualifying nonprofits and section 13-6-106 the action itself.
Passed in 2004 and amended in 2016, the scheme runs on 30 calendar days for a certificate, 60 day receiver reports and 30 days for the owner to satisfy the lien.
Suburban Questions
Which Building Department Do I Deal With?
Your own municipality's, or the county for unincorporated parcels. The assessor's record names which.
Does the Act Apply out Here?
Yes. It is a Tennessee statute and it enforces whichever local codes apply to your property.
Will You Buy in Germantown or Bartlett?
Yes, across the suburban municipalities and in any condition, though on strong values we will often tell you repairing is worth more.