We burned down an unwanted house for Tax Deduction!

mars1952

New member
Hi Folks: This is a video of the burning of a small farm house that we owned in Madison County in the western part of North Carolina. We donated the house to the local fire department to burn down for practice. The house was 75 years old at the time and in very bad condition. It has been built by poor farmers who did not have to worry about building codes or inspectors. The house looked pretty good from a distance but every part of the house needed to be rebuilt. The uphill end of the house sat directly on the dirt and was badly damaged by termites. The downhill end sat on dry stacked piles of stones. The roof had multiple layers of asphalt shingles covered by a layer of tin. Every board in the fascia, soffit and siding was rotten on the ends. To make a long story short the house needed just about everything replaced from top to bottom.

To qualify for a charitable tax deduction we had to have the house appraised and we had to get a letter from the fire department stating how much the house was worth to them as a training exercise. We were able to deduct the lesser of the two amounts as a charitable deduction on our income taxes. If you would like to have one of your buildings burned down I suggest that you talk to your accountant or tax attorney first.
Here is the link:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t31QRvLZZNs"]Farm House Burns to the Ground in Madison County NC[/ame]

Good Luck, Mars
 

bczoom

Senior Member
Staff member
Gold Site Supporter
Mars,

Good job! Now that it's gone, contact your local and/or county tax assessors so they can remove the building from your assessment and lower your taxes.
 

rlk

Member
Gold Site Supporter
Good video Mars.

I tried to do this a few years back and our local fire dept had no interest at all. Wouldn't even come to look at the house.

Bob
 

2810guy

Member
Good job on the video! I guess back in 1994 our family donated our familys old farm house as a practice house to burn. We live in Oswego County New York and our fire dept. is in Cleveland, about 9 miles away. Part of the crew showed up early to get familer with the layoutand start the fire, the rest staged a few miles away and responded as a real call. numerous stations in the area responded with mutual aid. My hat goes off to all the volunteers and paid fire fighters who protect us, and lets not forget the EMT's either. Remember its all team work and no me,me,me. . . its a we deal. Thanks firefighters and EMT's we owe our lives to yall. :clap:
 

mars1952

New member
Mars,

Good job! Now that it's gone, contact your local and/or county tax assessors so they can remove the building from your assessment and lower your taxes.

Hi bczoom: I will! I can not believe that I didn't think of that.
Mars
 

buckle97

New member
I tried to do this a few years back and our local fire dept had no interest at all. Wouldn't even come to look at the house.

I had the same experience with our local VFD. They told me they didn't have any interest in burning down my house. I ended up burning it down myself this past fall.
A motorist passing by saw this and called 911 to report a house fire. A volunteer fireman showed up in his personal vehicle and got on the radio to report this was a "controlled burn." Fortunately for me he was unable to put the quotes around "controlled burn" over the radio :whistling:
 

mars1952

New member
I had the same experience with our local VFD. They told me they didn't have any interest in burning down my house. I ended up burning it down myself this past fall.
A motorist passing by saw this and called 911 to report a house fire. A volunteer fireman showed up in his personal vehicle and got on the radio to report this was a "controlled burn." Fortunately for me he was unable to put the quotes around "controlled burn" over the radio :whistling:

It's nice to know that the Fireman was reasonable.
Mars
 
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