Markham requires a pre-sale inspection of the house, and it keeps registers for vacant buildings and for rental properties. The final water account has to be settled as well.
Fair Value Investments is a private real-estate investor buying for our own account. We are not a broker, lender, attorney, or government agency, and we charge no fee to make an offer.
| Requirement | In Markham | What that means, and where we read it |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-sale inspectionDoes the town inspect the house before it changes hands? | Required | Markham requires a pre-sale inspection on all properties sold in the City, and the property has to pass one to get a certificate of occupancy before anyone occupies it. A house that needs work can still change hands, but the occupancy bar travels with it. Source |
| Transfer stampDoes the town sell a stamp the deed cannot be recorded without? | Required | Markham sells a transfer stamp, and the City's own packet is where the requirement is published. The application goes through City review before a stamp is issued rather than being handed over at the counter, so it belongs at the front of your closing timeline and not in the week of it. The water read and any outstanding City charge on the parcel get settled before the stamp is bought. Source |
| Final water bill or account clearanceDoes the town want its own accounts settled first? | Required | A Final Water Reading Application is a required item in the City's document list for a sale, and it authorizes the City to shut off utility service at the property and take a final reading. The water account gets settled as part of the transfer, not after it. Source |
| Vacant building registrationDoes an empty house have to be registered? | Required | Markham publishes a foreclosure and vacant building registration form through Building & Housing with a registration fee, and it asks for the PIN, the property status, any hazardous materials stored there, and owner and manager contacts. An empty house the City already has a file on is better registered than discovered. Source |
| Rental licence or registrationDoes a tenant in the house bring its own paperwork? | Required | Markham publishes a rental license packet, a Rental Affidavit and a Rental Moratorium Affidavit, and an inspection is required when there is a tenant change in a rented property. Read the City's rental moratorium notice before you assume a buyer can keep renting it. Source |
Every "Required" and "Not required" above links the page we read it on, checked 2026-09-23. Fees, deadlines and the exact wording live on those pages and change without notice, so we do not reprint them here. For Markham itself, start with Markham's building and code department.
Markham is a City, and its Building & Housing Department checks houses at the point of sale rather than taking the deal on trust. The department says it plainly: a pre-sale inspection is required on all properties sold in the City of Markham. That single sentence shapes everything else on this page.
A house with a soft roof, a gutted bathroom, an open code file, a tenant in place or nobody in it at all is not disqualified from selling in Markham. It is a house the City will look at before the sale is finished, and what the inspector writes down decides who can lawfully occupy it afterward. Sellers get into trouble here not because the house is rough but because they start the City paperwork late, after a contract is already signed and a closing date is already on the calendar.
Markham sits in Bremen Township for Cook County assessment purposes, and the county half of the file lives downtown in Chicago. That means two separate sets of offices with two separate clocks, and neither one moves because your buyer would like it to. Start the City side early and you keep control of the schedule.
The inspection is the gate. Building & Housing requires it on all properties sold in the City, and it also requires one when there is a tenant change in a property that is rented or leased. There are fees associated with these inspections, and the City wants the request in well before the closing date so there is room for the visit itself and for anything the inspector writes up.
The part sellers miss is what passing is tied to. The property must pass an inspection to obtain a certificate of occupancy before being occupied. The City's As-Is Sale Affidavit repeats the point in capital letters: the property shall not be occupied until a certificate of occupancy has been issued. So the existence of that affidavit tells you something useful. Markham contemplates houses that change hands before the repairs are done, with the occupancy bar riding along to the new owner. If your buyer is an owner-occupant who plans to move in the week after closing, a failed inspection is their problem too, and it usually becomes a renegotiation. If your buyer intends to repair first and occupy later, the same failed inspection is a list of work, not a dead deal.
Ignore this step entirely and you find out about it at the worst moment, when the title company asks for the City's documents and there is nothing to hand over.
Every transfer document list the City publishes includes a Final Water Reading Application. The instruction on it is direct: in conjunction with the application, contact the Water Department for a final water read. The number for the Water Department is printed on the form.
Read what you are signing. The application authorizes the City to disconnect all utility services at the property and obtain a final reading, and it collects a mailing address so a service fee refund can be sent somewhere. That matters when the house is empty. Service comes off, and the final figure becomes a number the closing has to account for rather than a balance that quietly grows. If there is money owed on the account, it shows up here, and the City's own vacant property checklist has a box for water balance, which tells you how the departments talk to each other.
Markham publishes a foreclosure and vacant building registration form through Building & Housing, and it carries a registration fee. The form asks for the address and PIN, a case name and number, the property status with boxes for vacant or occupied by owner, renter or squatters, and whether toxic, flammable or hazardous materials are stored at the property. It also collects owner and property manager contact information.
Look at the City's internal checkboxes on that same form: water balance, liens and tickets, grass and board-up, property file, permit number. That is the City assembling a single picture of the address before it signs off on anything. If crews have cut grass or boarded openings, or if tickets have been written, those items are already attached to the property file and they surface when the sale documents come through. Registering an empty house is not what creates the exposure. The exposure is already there, and open code matters are easier to price when both sides can see them.
The rental side of Markham is the piece most out-of-town buyers get wrong. The City publishes a rental license packet, a City of Markham Rental Affidavit that appears as a required item in its sale document lists, a Rental Moratorium Affidavit, and a published rental moratorium letter of notice. An inspection is required when there is a tenant change in a rented or leased property, and the property still has to pass to obtain a certificate of occupancy before occupancy.
Anyone selling a tenanted Markham house, and anyone buying one as an investment, should read the moratorium notice before assuming the property can simply continue as a rental under new ownership. A deal priced on rental income that cannot be licensed is a deal that falls apart late. Better to know at the offer stage.
The local half is the Markham Building & Housing Department, which handles the pre-sale inspection, the certificate of occupancy, the vacant registration and the rental paperwork. The Final Water Read Application goes with a call to the Water Department at the number printed on it.
The county half is separate. Tax bills and the annual tax sale run through the Cook County Treasurer's Office. Redeeming taxes that have already been sold goes through the Cook County Clerk's Office. Deeds and recorded liens are also with the Cook County Clerk's Office, which absorbed the Recorder of Deeds. Court matters sit with the Circuit Court of Cook County. Our Cook County page explains how those offices divide the work, and the county tax side is written up separately.
Fair Value Investments is a buyer, not a service. We buy Chicagoland houses for cash for our own account, in whatever condition they are in. We look at your house as it stands, with the failed items, the open file and the tenant included, and we either make an offer or we tell you we are not the right buyer. At closing, the title company pays what is owed out of the sale proceeds, which is how liens, water balances and taxes get cleared without you writing a check first.
Take any number we give you to an agent or an attorney and compare it. A cash offer on a house that needs work is usually below what the same house would list for once it is repaired, inspected and passed. That gap is the trade: you are not doing the work, not carrying the property while it is done, and not depending on someone else's lender.
The City requires a pre-sale inspection on all properties sold in Markham, and the City publishes an As-Is Sale Affidavit that states in capitals that the property shall not be occupied until a certificate of occupancy has been issued. Passing is what produces the certificate of occupancy, so the practical question is not whether the house can change hands but who is going to do the work and when anyone can move in. Ask Building & Housing how they want an as-is transfer documented, and get the inspection requested well before the closing date.
Registration puts the address and its status on paper with a fee attached, but the City's own form shows it is already tracking water balance, liens and tickets, grass and board-up work, the property file and permit numbers for that address. Those items exist whether or not you fill out the form, and they come up when the sale documents reach Building & Housing. The form also asks whether toxic, flammable or hazardous materials are stored at the property, which is worth answering accurately.
An inspection is required when there is a tenant change in a rented or leased property, and the property has to pass to get a certificate of occupancy before it is occupied. The City also publishes a Rental Affidavit as a required sale document, a rental license packet, a Rental Moratorium Affidavit and a rental moratorium letter of notice. Read the moratorium notice first, because it affects whether a buyer can keep operating the house as a rental at all.
No repairs, no fee, no obligation. See the number, then decide.