Burke County, NC Property Maintenance: Property Blight (2026)

Chapter 10, article II of the Burke County Code targets dwellings that are unfit for human habitation due to dilapidation, fire hazards, and unsanitary conditions, under the findings in § 10-26. Once the building code administrator investigates and, after notice and a hearing under § 10-36, finds a dwelling unfit, the administrator issues a written order requiring the owner to repair, alter or improve the dwelling if that can be done at reasonable cost, or to remove or demolish it if it cannot. Section 10-28 makes it unlawful for the owner to ignore that order: failing, neglecting or refusing to repair, vacate, close, remove or demolish the dwelling within the time the order sets is a violation, and each day the failure continues counts as a separate offense.

If the owner still does not comply, § 10-36(c) lets the public officer, once the board of commissioners has passed its own ordinance authorizing action on that specific property, carry out the repair, closing or demolition directly and post a placard on the dwelling stating, in the code's own words, that the building is unfit for human habitation and that occupying it is prohibited and unlawful; occupying a posted building is a Class 1 misdemeanor. The county recovers what it spends: under § 10-39, the cost of any repair, closing or demolition the public officer carries out becomes a lien against the property, filed and enforced the same way as a special-assessment lien, and if the dwelling is demolished the officer sells the salvageable materials and credits the proceeds against that cost. Any dwelling in a historic district gets an extra layer of review from the historic district commission before demolition can be ordered.