City: BofA The Biggest Culprit In Ignoring City Ordinance To Ensure Maintenance Of Vacant Homes; Bankster Heads List Of Worcester Scofflaws

In Worcester, Massachusetts, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reports:

• A national bank that city officials say is the biggest culprit in ignoring a city ordinance to ensure vacant properties are maintained and secured has been ordered to comply with the local law.



• Charlotte, N.C.-based Bank of America was ordered by a Worcester Housing Court judge last week to obey the city’s vacant and foreclosing property ordinance for 1 Blodgett Place. The city’s Department of Inspectional Services has issued orders on 124 other properties owned by Bank of America. If the bank does not comply, those cases they will be forwarded to Housing Court for adjudication.



• The city has taken other banks to court and they have lost too, but none was as large as Bank of America, according to city officials. The move comes as the city tries to hold owners of vacant and foreclosed properties accountable for the condition of those properties.



• “You would hope there was a sense of responsibility in these mega-institutions for the mess they all contributed to, but I gather that is asking too much,” City Manager Michael V. O’Brien said. “Look, these banks, ‘too big to fail,’ as the regulators say, got billions and billions and billions of taxpayer dollars rewarding them for their excesses and largesse, faulty lending practices and exotic financial products that collapsed our economy.”

For more, see Bank of America faces local order (City seeks compliance with vacancy ordinance).