When Owners Walk Away

There are two accounts this morning of Brooklyn residents that have had to cope with banks being unsatisfactory stewards of properties after they’ve taken control of them. “Battle for Brooklyn” co-director Michael Galinsky pens a piece for The Local about living on the same block as an abandoned house on Hall Street. About three years ago, break-ins became commonplace at the home and thieves still target it despite the fact that it’s basically been stripped of anything valuable. Galinsky says calls to city agencies about the dilapidated state of the property and the criminal element it attracts have had little effect, and last week his wife “had to hustle our 5-year-old past a homeless person relieving her bowels in the front yard at 5 p.m.” Although he recently found out that a lender has taken control of the house, a phone call to the company accomplished little: “My sense is that they are waiting for the market to improve before selling it. In the meantime we have to endure rats, an unheated house next door which leads to frozen pipes, trash build up and a sense of disinvestment in the community.” Gotham Gazette, meanwhile, has an article about how tenants of apartment buildings that are being foreclosed upon sometimes have to deal with substandard living conditions, using a Park Slope building where residents have had issues with no heat and hot water as an example. The tenants are trying to get the bank that controls the building to put up the funds to maintain the property. According to the article, the City Council is currently considering three bills that would require to lenders that take control of properties to have more of an obligation to maintain them.
Opinion: Empty Home a Catalyst for Crime [The Local]
Foreclosures Leave Apartment Buildings in Need of Repair [Gotham Gazette]
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