We Buy Houses in Walker County

Rossville, LaFayette, and Chickamauga

The Walker County joint comprehensive plan says Rossville's long economic decline left dilapidated buildings and houses, even though the city sits right against Chattanooga. LaFayette adopted an urban redevelopment plan for West LaFayette to deal with pockets of blight, and both cities joined the Georgia Initiative for Community Housing. Chickamauga's plan calls for replacing aging sewer and sidewalks and notes that a large share of the city is in a floodplain, where it has already removed substandard houses.

A typical house here is small, frame or block, and older, often a long-term rental with deferred work. Walker County's Codes Enforcement department handles complaints such as junk cars, overgrown lawns, and household garbage under the International Property Maintenance Code, which the county adopted in 2015. An open case does not stop a sale, since any recorded lien is paid from your proceeds.

Mountain lots, limestone valleys, and wells

Lookout and Pigeon mountains frame the county's valleys, and the City of Lookout Mountain lists a steep slope stabilization plan among its natural resource projects. On a brow or mountainside lot, retaining walls, driveway washouts, and septic placement are the usual inspection questions.

The valley floors sit on limestone and dolomite. A state groundwater study of the county describes wells in the Knox dolomite striking solution openings, one of them 78 feet deep, one reason well records matter when a rural Walker property changes hands. If you have a well log or a water test, send it; if not, we still make an offer.

Old mobile homes on family land

Plenty of Walker parcels have a mobile home that someone else left behind, or one that has been empty for years. Georgia's Abandoned Mobile Home Act lets a landowner ask the county agent, Walker's Codes and Planning Director, to inspect it. An intact home allows the owner to file a lien for back rent; a derelict one can be disposed of after notice and a hearing in magistrate court.

Storms add to the problem. The National Weather Service rated the April 27, 2011 tornado that crossed from Dade County and lifted just west of Fort Oglethorpe an EF3, and on April 12, 2020 an EF2 tornado tracked from Chattooga County to just southeast of LaFayette. We buy land with a damaged or abandoned home on it as is.

Walker County property we buy

• Older rentals in Rossville and West LaFayette, occupied or vacant
• Houses in Chickamauga with flood history or failing sewer laterals
• Brow and mountainside houses on Lookout and Pigeon mountains
• Rural land with an abandoned or derelict mobile home on it
• Houses on wells with low yield or no records
• Properties with open Walker County codes enforcement complaints
• Inherited houses where heirs live in Tennessee or Alabama
• Storm-damaged houses in the 2011 and 2020 tornado paths

Records, courts, and closing in Walker County

LaFayette is the county seat. The Walker County Clerk of Superior Court, part of the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, records deeds and liens. Wills and estates are administered by the Walker County Probate Court. The Assessors Office values property and the Tax Commissioner bills on 40 percent of fair market value. A licensed Georgia attorney closes the sale.

When you ask for an offer, tell us whether anyone lives in the house or in a mobile home on the land, and whether there is an open code complaint. In Walker the closing date usually depends on clearing title to an old mobile home, settling an estate, or getting a payoff on a recorded lien. If you now live in Tennessee, expect Georgia's nonresident withholding rules to come up at closing.

Frequently asked questions