Charley and the Fifty Percent Rule

Imagine our surprise as we are in the midst of making aranements for the necessary repairs to our home and we learn of the 50% rule. This is a local ordinance which states (and I am paraphrasing) that any single family dwelling that sustains damage totalling more than 50% of the value of the dwelling must be (here I am a bit uncertain as to which way option is enforced) brought completely up to existing code or torn down and rebuilt to existing code. Either way we will not have enough money to do it and are hoping against hope we can get a loan. HOLY UNFUNDED MANDATES BATMAN! We also discovered that our insurance company is only responsible for the damages they assess. We are between a rock and a hard place and another rock. While I understand and actually agree with the basic idea, to replace older damaged structures with newer more sound ones the burden on the homeowner can be immense! There needs to be some form of assistance for people with older homes to help mitigate the cost of such ordinances.