Renters Say "You Lend It, You Mend It!" As Lawyers Cite NY Legal Precedent In Attempt To Hold Banks Responsible For Repairing Property In Legal Limbo

In New York City, the Daily News reports:

• Thousands of city tenants living in foreclosed apartment buildings - many with deteriorating conditions - saw a glimmer of hope Wednesday. Lawyers for Legal Service NYC filed a motion in Bronx Supreme Court that would force banks foreclosing on a property to maintain the building's upkeep while the case is pending.

• A foreclosure, especially a contested one, could drag on for years, leaving the building without a tangible owner to make repairs for some things as simple as a runny faucet or as serious as toxic mold. "As complicated as this problem is, we're not going to take it lying down," said City Council Speaker Christine Quinn (D-Manhattan), who was involved in forming a city task force on financially distressed rental housing last year. "We will go building by building. This is a message to lenders that they will be held accountable," Quinn said.

• The judge hearing the case, Justice Stanley Green, will not likely rule on the motion for several weeks. There is legal precedent for the motion, said Legal Services lawyers citing a 1997 New York State appellate court ruling that a bank is responsible for maintaining a property during a foreclosure proceeding.

• About a year ago, banking behemoth Wells Fargo foreclosed on 10 properties in the Bronx owned by Los Angeles-based Milbank Real Estate. Since then, the buildings have been languishing in legal limbo, no longer owned by Milbank, but not yet definitively awarded by a judge to Wells Fargo.

For more, see Judge to rule on maintenance resposibility for foreclosing properties.

See also, The New York Times: Bid to Make Banks Fix Crumbling Bronx Properties (Housing advocates estimate that 4,700 apartments in dozens of buildings across New York City are in foreclosure, and that about 110,000 apartments are at risk).