[StBernard] damage assessment

[Westley Annis]

The council wrote: "A property owner who wishes to challenge the damage 
assessment filed in the
Office of Community Development should complete the following steps:
1)check on the spbg.net website for your damage assessment; 2)if you
disagree with the assessment, hire a licensed contractor and/or 
structural
engineer to document that the house is less than 50% damaged;..."

I just want to stress that when you hire a structural engineer, he/she 
will  assume you
want a report on the amount of damage to the house structure-the 
bricks, roof,
studs, slab, piers, etc. In the many structural engr. reports I have 
seen, that is what
they address as a percent of damage.  They do not address cost. I don't 
know
if any of the structural engineers will estimate repair costs for you, 
although contractors
will.  But how many contractors have time to give free estimates to 
people on repair
costs without any guarantee they will get your business?

What FEMA says in their manuals on the web is that they
are interested in the cost to repair to pre-Katrina condition as
a percent of pre Katrina value of the house (not including the value of 
the land).

If the FEMA rule is strictly adhered to, FEMA will be looking at the 
value of the house prior to the storm
less the lot's value.  If you have your own certified appraisal you can 
use that to argue an arbitrary
per sq. ft. value FEMA comes up with. For example, SBA did a pre 
Katrina value of my home based on
sq. ft. value and it was less than the certified appraisal. It didn't 
affect my SBA loan, but if
FEMA uses the same estimating calculations, I think they would accept 
my certified appraisal as
being more accurate than their ballpark estimate. I thinkg FEMA should 
release their range of sq. ft. value
of the houses for our area if they are going to use that on people.

With regards to cost to repair. You only have to consider the cost
to bring it back to what you had prior to Katrina. If you upgrade to 
better materials or equipment, just
have a quote on what it would be  if you had replaced in-kind.  I 
suspect that FEMA will have a
formula for per sq. ft. repair costs for every sq. ft. damaged. If they 
have such a thing,
they should release it to the public immediately. They know your sq. 
footage or can
get it, just like you do.

For example, If FEMA uses $50 per sq. ft to repair the area that was
damaged (and they don't count free labor), but they place a value of 
less than  $100 per sq. ft. on the entire
house (damaged and undamaged areas), then FEMA would say you are more 
than 50% damaged and
you would have to prove a) the real value of your house prior to the 
storm and b) the real
costs or professionally estimated cost to repair the damaged areas in 
order to dispute the FEMA
percent damaged.

This is why a two story home with no damage on the second floor would 
likely calculate out to far less
than 50% damaged, while a one story home is tricky and depends on many 
variables.

We just don't seem to know how exact FEMA and/or the Parish will be 
with these calculations
given that there are 25,000  damaged homes just in our parish.  Just 
stayed tuned to see
what guidance the parish gives.

Keep all your receipts. Keep track of what is true replacement
and what is an upgrade. I don't think it's fair if FEMA includes any 
cost for mold remediation or
gutting because that is just clean up costs, not repair costs. Some 
people have paid as much
as $4 per sq. ft. to have professionals gut their homes and another $2 
per sq. ft. to
have the soda blasting, not to mention Boracare and Sporiciding chemical
spraying. That's over $6 per sq. ft before the first repair is made and 
in my
opinion, that is not repair costs. But, hey, FEMA doesn't call me for 
my input so it doesn't
matter what logic I use, does it?


Deborah Keller