Two Things Stay Yours Whoever Buys
Most of these pages are about sorting buyers. Start instead with the two obligations that do not transfer, because a buyer who tells you otherwise is either mistaken or hoping you are.
The certificate. The smoke and carbon monoxide Certificates of Compliance under chapter 148 are seller obligations at closing. A cash buyer taking a property as-is does not absorb that; in a standard Massachusetts purchase and sale agreement it remains a condition you satisfy. On a gutted building it is not a formality, and the time to raise it with Boston Fire Prevention is now rather than the week of the closing.
The tenancies. If anyone was renting any unit, their position survives the fire and binds whoever owns the building next. That is priced by every competent buyer, and where it has not been established they discount for the uncertainty rather than absorbing it.
Can a Buyer Take on the Certificate Obligation for Me?
Two Costs an Outside Buyer Misses
Now the buyer's side. Two Boston-specific costs sit outside a regional model, and both surface after contract rather than before.
Article 85. Every building in Downtown or Harborpark, and every other building in the city at least fifty years old, goes through Landmarks Commission review before a demolition permit can issue. Staff have ten calendar days to determine significance. A "not significant" letter clears it. A significance finding brings a community meeting, a public hearing at which alternatives to demolition must be presented, and up to ninety days after that hearing closes.
A buyer whose plan is to clear the site and who has not sought that determination has a schedule that may be four months adrift.
Frame construction. In the masonry cities a surviving shell carries a fire file. Boston's triple-deckers and three-family houses are wood frame, and where fire reaches the framing there is usually nothing structural worth preserving. A buyer applying shell logic to a frame building has overvalued what is standing.
What Should I Ask a Buyer About the Demolition Timeline?
Who Is Actually Calling
Boston rehabbers and small developers. They restore and reposition triple-deckers and three-families, which is the core work of this market. They know Article 85 because they file it routinely, and they price the certificate because they have been caught by it before.
Cash acquirers. Capital held to buy in damaged condition, taking title in their own name on their own timetable. Usually fastest, rarely highest.
Multi-family investors. Buying for the rental income a rebuilt three-family produces rather than for a resale. On a triple-decker they frequently outbid a flipper, because they are pricing a longer hold.
Out-of-market funds. Working from a model with neither Article 85 nor the certificate in it. Fast, confident, and the most likely to revise.
Contract assigners. They sign to buy and sell the contract on before closing. The question is whether the party will own your building or introduce somebody who will.
The Records Worth Pulling
The Registry of Deeds. Search the buyer's exact legal entity as grantee at the Suffolk County Registry. A firm that buys here has recorded deeds here. Ask for the entity on the contract rather than the brand on the letter, because those routinely differ.
Your own building's file. Inspectional Services for the permit history and any violation, and the assessor's record for the year built — which is what determines whether Article 85 applies at all.
The licence lookup. A party marketing your property to others rather than buying it themselves is engaged in brokerage and needs a Massachusetts licence. A principal buyer taking title does not.
Where We Fit, and Where We Do Not
We buy as principal, in our own entity, with our own funds, and we take title. We do not assign contracts. Run the checks above on us and ask us the same questions.
We are frequently not the right answer. On a triple-decker where the frame came through and the units can be restored, a multi-family investor pricing the rental income will beat us, because they are valuing a longer hold than we are. On a brick or brownstone building with a surviving shell, a rehabber who will build inside it should win. And where the repair sits well below finished value, restoring and listing beats any cash offer including ours — and it resolves the certificate question naturally, which selling does not. Our written figure says so when the numbers point there. What happens from there is on our page about how the process actually runs.
The statutory position behind all of this is on our page covering Massachusetts certificates, claims and excise.
Questions About Buyers
A Buyer Says the Certificate Is Not a Problem.
Ask them how they know, specifically. On a habitable building it genuinely is routine. On a gutted one it is not, and a confident answer without a conversation with the fire department is not an answer.
Should I Take the Highest Number?
Only once it survives the Article 85 question and the certificate question. In this market the gap between a firm offer and a soft one is unusually wide because both costs sit outside a standard model.
Does a Buyer Need a Licence?
Not to buy as a principal and take title. Marketing property on behalf of others requires a Massachusetts licence, and the state lookup will confirm whether a party holds one.