Cook County demolition bonds.
From $100. Enter your amount.
Before Cook County's Department of Building and Zoning issues a permit to wreck, demolish, or tear down a building in unincorporated Cook County, it conditions the permit on a surety bond. Premiums cost 1% of the bond amount, $100 minimum. The application collects no credit information, and most applications approve instantly.
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Cook County demolition bonds are a short, standard-form indemnity obligation. Enter your amount and file with the Department of Building and Zoning. Here is the whole thing:
Apply online
Your business details, the fiscal year covered by your demolition permits, the bond amount for the structure's height, and the effective date — no financials, no credit section.
Approved
The application collects no credit information, so most Cook County demolition bonds approve instantly — pricing is 1% of the bond amount, $100 minimum.
File with Building and Zoning
Your executed bond arrives by email, ready to attach to your demolition permit application. Wet-ink originals mailed on request.
What it is and who needs it.
What the demolition bond actually guarantees
A demolition bond is an indemnity guarantee. Before a principal can procure a permit to wreck, demolish, or tear down a building or structure in unincorporated Cook County during the permit's fiscal year, the Department of Building and Zoning conditions that permit on a bond running to the County of Cook.
The bond's standard form obligates the principal to indemnify, keep, and save harmless Cook County and its agents or officials against any loss, cost, damage, expense, judgment, or liability arising from accidents to persons or property on account of the demolition operations — including anything done by the principal's agents, employees, or workmen under the permit. It is a three-party arrangement: you (the principal), the surety carrier, and Cook County (the obligee). If the County is held liable for demolition-related harm, it can draw on the bond, and if the surety pays, you repay the surety.
The penal sum is set by the height of the structure: $20,000 for demolition of three stories or less, and $40,000 for demolition of four stories or more. Enter the figure that matches your structure; the premium is 1% of that amount, $100 minimum, and the application collects no credit information.
You need this bond if you are
One application, issued instantly.
These are the actual issuing fields — no credit section, because this application doesn't collect credit information.
Start the application →Common questions.
Other Illinois bonds.
Pull the demolition permit today.
From $100, no credit section. Enter the amount your structure requires and file with the County the same day.