Colorado Springs Foreclosure Houses, Utility Activations and inspections.

For your investment buyer this could be one of the most trivial experiences in buying one of the many Colorado Springs Foreclosure Houses.  They find a great deal, with your help, and now the fun of the escrow period begins. 

Hopefully upfront you disclosed that if the utilites have been turned off for more than a year, you will have to pay some big dollars to re-activate them. 

Your perfect Colorado Springs Foreclosure House deal just got frozen in time...

Your deal is not lost, but just got a little more costly.  First you will need to contact your local Building Deptartment.  This entity financially runs on permits and the occasional fine.  They inspect code and where necessary enforce it.  A possible work site shut down, is possible.

How do you handle re-activation?

• Call the Regional Building Department.

• Schedule an inspection for the Electrical components of your property, this will cost you ~ about $60. (El Paso County)

• Hire a gas line technician.  Note: not all HVAC technicians are certified to perform the necessary pressure check. ~ $150

• Hire a plumber to pressure check the plumbing system. ~$150

• The 2 professionals(plumber and gas line Tech) need to pull the inspection from the Regional Buidling Department.

• Finally when all these inspections have resulted in "PASS" you can call your utility department to have the power turned on, FINALLY!

• This process might take a week or more.

Please bear in mind, my experience is local experience and your building department might have different protocols.

Don't despair though, with all the Colorado Springs Foreclosure Houses and resulting great deals, you will find the utilitiy re-activation well worth it.