Vacant Foreclosures Leaving Some Code Enforcement Officials In A Bind; $5-10K Fines Getting Some Lenders' Attention

In Redding, California, the Redding Record Searchlight reports:

• The pool at this East Bonnyview Road home has literally popped out of the ground -- almost as if an earthquake hit -- evidence of a growing blight in Redding: foreclosed properties that have been abandoned. "The problem is finding somebody who is legally responsible once the home goes into the foreclosure action," Redding Code Enforcement Supervisor Debra Wright said.

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• Since January, Wright's office has posted about 20 compliance orders on foreclosed homes in Redding. That's the most in Wright's 20 years - four as supervisor - with the city. While the number of vacant and abandoned homes is up in Redding, it's dwarfed by what's happening in the rest of the state. [...] But Doug Leeper, code enforcement manager in the pricey San Diego suburb of Chula Vista, said communities like Redding need to move fast before the problem gets much worse.

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• Fed up with lenders seizing homes and then leaving them to rot, Chula Vista in July adopted a program that forces lenders to maintain homes they've taken back and to register the abandoned houses with the city. Leeper said in the first few months of the program, the city didn't get much cooperation from lenders. When the $5,000 and $10,000 fines started showing up on lenders' desks, however, Leeper's phone was ringing. [...] "Last week I had one gentleman come in and register 38 properties, [said Leeper]."

For more, see Abandoned homes a blight risk (Homes left vacant by foreclosure leave officials and neighborhoods in a bind).

Go here for other posts on vacant homes leaving its mark on neighborhoods. neighborhood destruction from foreclosures I