Cities grapple with surge in abandoned homes

[BillsWatch]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080325/lf_nm/...using_vacant_dc

In western New York, the city of Buffalo filed a lawsuit on February 21 against 36 lenders -- including big names like JPMorgan Chase & Co Inc and Countrywide Financial Corp -- who were involved in 57 foreclosures that led to properties being abandoned and ultimately demolished by authorities.

 

The struggling Rust Belt city, plagued by about 10,000 vacant homes and commercial buildings, estimated the 57 foreclosures cost Buffalo $1 million in demolition work and another $1 million in nuisance costs -- from police patrols to boarding up buildings, to the social toll on communities.

 

"We have found homicide victims in these structures," Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said in a telephone interview.

 

"Dog fighting has taken place in these structures. Drug dealing has been conducted. Last year one of our fire fighters was critically injured, losing one of his legs from the knee down, fighting a fire at a vacant structure," he said.

 

Good Buffalo is fighting back. It is not all preditory lending however. Too many people tried flipping houses when housing prices waere rising forgetting that sooner or later what goes up must come down.

[KD in CA]

Good Buffalo is fighting back. It is not all preditory lending however. Too many people tried flipping houses when housing prices waere rising forgetting that sooner or later what goes up must come down.

 

 

Fighting back?? Against who? This is insanity. We used to just have crooked lawyers filing bullsh-- lawsuits for no reason other than the target having deep pockets; now we have governments doing it??

 

I was in Buffalo a few years ago....right in the heyday of the housing boom. We walked from the Anchor Bar to Chippewa Street and passed by dozens of vacant buildings. How long have those been there? Who is the city suing for those abandon buildings? Oh yeah...no one...because there is no rich bank holding the paper on those properties.

[gmac17]

KD, just because people aren't smart enough to read a mortgage doesn't mean they should have to suffer the consequences.

 

geez.

[Bullpen]

Isn't a grapple a hybrid fruit? Someone told me it's an apple that tastes like a grape? What's THAT gonna do for the housing sich-e-ation?

[VABills]

Isn't a grapple a hybrid fruit? Someone told me it's an apple that tastes like a grape? What's THAT gonna do for the housing sich-e-ation?

Wegmans down here, have them sometimes. I don't care for them, but my little one does.

[taterhill]

there are houses for sale in some parts of the city for under 2k....and they are not selling...

[gmac17]

Wegmans down here, have them sometimes. I don't care for them, but my little one does.

 

grapple really is a misnomer - makes you think it is going to taste more like a grape. they need a new name with less influence from the word grape.

 

gapple? sounds too dirty.

[MarkyMannn]

Last night went to the East Side to re-discover my roots. You know, Dyngus Day!!!

 

 

Man, that whole area around the Broadway Market is pretty nasty. Lots of boarded up vacant homes. Just ride down some of the side streets. Holy cow

[RayFinkle]

Who the f*ck does the city think they're kidding? So if you don't pay your bills, financial institutions should just let you live there anyway and not foreclose because it makes the neighborhood sh*tty? News flash: it was like that 20 years ago! What are they going to say next, people couldn't afford their variable rate mortgage once the rate increased on an $15,000 loan?

[Beerball]

Who the f*ck does the city think they're kidding? So if you don't pay your bills, financial institutions should just let you live there anyway and not foreclose because it makes the neighborhood sh*tty? News flash: it was like that 20 years ago! What are they going to say next, people couldn't afford their variable rate mortgage once the rate increased on an $15,000 loan?

I could be wrong, but I think...

 

The institutions foreclosed on the previous 'owners'. They (the institutions) then did nothing with the properties that they now owned. The city was forced to demolish the structures at taxpayer expense. Now they are trying to recoup their loss $$$. I see nothing wrong, underhanded or crooked about this.

[DC Tom]

I could be wrong, but I think...

 

The institutions foreclosed on the previous 'owners'. They (the institutions) then did nothing with the properties that they now owned. The city was forced to demolish the structures at taxpayer expense. Now they are trying to recoup their loss $$$. I see nothing wrong, underhanded or crooked about this.

 

Except that I can't recall any instances before where owners were held liable for the city's costs in condemning a building. I'll have to ask my wife and/or sister if they know anything about the law...but this seems suspiciously like trying to "legislate from the bench", in that they're trying to hold homeowners responsible for that which they historically haven't without resorting to the legislative process - and worse, applying it retroactively to a group of homeowners classified strictly by their deep pockets, on the questionable legal principle of "They have money, therefore they must be bad."

 

Strikes me that the city would have a better chance going after said banks under drug laws...if the houses owned by banks were being used as drug dens, there's some pretty clear law and precedent for criminal indictments.

[VABills]

Except that I can't recall any instances before where owners were held liable for the city's costs in condemning a building. I'll have to ask my wife and/or sister if they know anything about the law...but this seems suspiciously like trying to "legislate from the bench", in that they're trying to hold homeowners responsible for that which they historically haven't without resorting to the legislative process - and worse, applying it retroactively to a group of homeowners classified strictly by their deep pockets, on the questionable legal principle of "They have money, therefore they must be bad."

 

Strikes me that the city would have a better chance going after said banks under drug laws...if the houses owned by banks were being used as drug dens, there's some pretty clear law and precedent for criminal indictments.

Of course couldn't the city be sued fordestroying the banks properties, especially if the y bank was still paying the taxes on the property?

[Peter]

Except that I can't recall any instances before where owners were held liable for the city's costs in condemning a building. I'll have to ask my wife and/or sister if they know anything about the law...but this seems suspiciously like trying to "legislate from the bench", in that they're trying to hold homeowners responsible for that which they historically haven't without resorting to the legislative process - and worse, applying it retroactively to a group of homeowners classified strictly by their deep pockets, on the questionable legal principle of "They have money, therefore they must be bad."

 

Strikes me that the city would have a better chance going after said banks under drug laws...if the houses owned by banks were being used as drug dens, there's some pretty clear law and precedent for criminal indictments.

 

Owners are responsible. This would be true whether it was the individual homeowner or the bank that becomes the owner after foreclosure.

 

I had a situation down here with a former client who never finished building a building (lack of funds). After the property sat and became a dumping ground, the city condemned the property. The client then got a notice stating that it had the choice of clearing the property itself or having to pay for the city's demolition of the existing structure.

 

Again, owners are responsble. It should not make any difference whether the owner is bank that became the owner after foreclosure.

[stuckincincy]

In Hamilton County, Ohio, some lenders - almost always out-of-State entities - have not and will not register the deeds. So the last person of record, the "foreclosee" so to speak have been lit upon by the cities, towns, and the county to repair/maintain property they no longer own and occupy.

[DC Tom]

Owners are responsible. This would be true whether it was the individual homeowner or the bank that becomes the owner after foreclosure.

 

I had a situation down here with a former client who never finished building a building (lack of funds). After the property sat and became a dumping ground, the city condemned the property. The client then got a notice stating that it had the choice of clearing the property itself or having to pay for the city's demolition of the existing structure.

 

Again, owners are responsble. It should not make any difference whether the owner is bank that became the owner after foreclosure.

 

I stand corrected (just heard back from the wife; rushed here to admit my wrongness. Someone might want to mark the date.) The cities are well within their rights to demand restitution from the banks, they being the owners of the foreclosed properties.