- America agrees that banks must tidy up their foreclosed properties
- But, what is the best approach to achieve this?
Nevada county officials put the squeeze on untidy property owners
Local Government officials are getting tougher across the Nevada Valley as both banks and property owners ignore legitimate requests to tidy up their yards, and sell their houses before they become derelict. Clark County now fines delinquents $1,000 when they fail to submit a rehabilitation plan. North Las Vegas is planning to charge for fixing broken windows, hanging doors and untidy yards. In Henderson, the locals are so hopping mad that they are looking for ways to force lenders to complete their repossessions faster, so that they can hold them more fully responsible for their condition.
As usual, the banks who are at least halfway responsible for the mess Nevada finds itself in are muttering about the next round of pressure that is disturbing the quiet of their boardrooms. “If these fines accumulate, is anybody going to buy it?” asks President of the Nevada Bankers Association, Bill Uffelman. He seems to be missing the point. Surely guilty banks should pay their fines like the rest of us, not flip them on?
Joe Boteilho, Chief Code Enforcement Officer for Clark County was in a fighting mood when he spoke to reporters recently. His Department issued over 1,000 citations during 2009, yet it seems that some at least have still failed to note his point. “We have gotten the word out that Clark County is not going to tolerate this,” he emphasized. “[Neighbors] shouldn’t have to deal with their property values going down because owners aren’t maintaining their properties.”
Some of Boteilho’s colleagues are concerned that he could be building a bridge too far. Alan Ellis of Henderson County, for example, is worried that the threat of government lien foreclosures that follow unpaid fines could become a further discouragement against home ownership. In his case, the focus is more on obtaining compliance, and less on imposing fines and collecting repossessions. For his reason he prefers to use an escalating scale of penalties – $100 for the first citation, $250 more after two weeks has passed without results, and so on. His system seems to work. Fifty first citations led to forty early successes and just 10 criminal actions. He also charges to clean up the properties of delinquent residents.
Wells Fargo Bank’s Vice President of Government relations has gone on record to state that he has a clean-up team that sniffs out neglected homes in the bank’s inventory and neatens them. “I can’t speak to what others do [though],” he added. “There are a lot of other services out there [too].”
Most Americans agree that its time to put the squeeze on owners and get our neighborhoods tidy once again. Who knows? The foreclosed homes on www.foreclosuredatabank.com could soon have neater gardens too.
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Written by Alex Rolim.
