Abandoned House

Are the Real Estate taxes paid up to date? Who is paying them, where are the tax bills being sent to, if there is no mortgage they are going to whoever is responsible for the building.
When it comes to elderly owners, that is not necessarily the actual owner. It could be a Court appointed Guardian / or an administrator and depending on which State they are in they can be extremely irresponsible… clueless even.
If the taxes are in areas go speak to the assessor explain the situation and see if they cannot push the proceedings to foreclose. When the owner is elderly & out of State, the City is sometimes slow due to the extra work & expense of serving all that need to be served etc.
A few years ago I worked on a similar situation for some neighbors of similar building. The taxes were being paid by an Attorney in L.A, California. An elderly family member of his owned the property, that person had died with no will and the family who were spread out all over many States, all very successful people for the most part, but none had time to waste with a building in Brooklyn (lo ng before Brooklyn become “Brooklyn”) so the taxes were paid by auto pilot and the house just rotted collecting sanitation summonses, unsafe building notices etc… none got to California.
At first the L.A attorney thought he could get it straight…. no, he was an entertainment business lawyer, not Real Estate… he eventually relented and hired a NY Estates Attorney I found a buyer; the contract read to close as soon as clean title was obtained. The buyer ordered title… a complete mess, probate had not been done for at least the last three generations of owners. The buyer was ready to walk, but the property had already gone up in value by 30-40% from his contract price…. He stuck in there, carried on working on other deals as they came along… every time the title company came up with locating another family member who’s signature was needed he would spend time explaining, often having to go & visit them, two were in Federal Jails, he actual went to Texas to visit one of those a few times and still keeps in touch by mail to this day…. It took 5 years, by the time the buyer closed on the house it was worth 10 times what his contract price was, he had taken over paying the RE Taxes, boarding up the building and securing it, cleaning and exterminating it etc… but he got a bargain and lots of interesting stories to tell.
I do think City agencies are little more responsive now than they were then but it is going to take some effort to push them and follow up.
Have you talked to your community board? If the Tax office will not do their part, The DOB assuming there is an Unsafe Building Notice already? won’t do their part then go to the Community Board & your local Council person.

resident2

in General Discussion 6 years and 8 months ago

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bigbowlofwrong | 6 years and 8 months ago

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We are at a loss with how to deal with an abandoned house that abuts our wood-framed townhouse. This house has been vacant for 15 years, is completely overgrown and in disrepair, and is home to rats and raccoons that have burrowed into our house and our neighbors. Most recently, it seems to be the source of a nasty flea infestation that made several backyards on the block unusable.

Of course we’ve filed complaint after complaint with the city, DOB, mayors office, met with local govt office, but there seems to be no recourse, and no city agency is any help at all. What is most baffling to us is that the house has 50+ DOB violations and thousands of dollars in outstanding fines which the city just keeps issuing.

So my question is – does anyone have any suggestions as to how we should address this?

slopefarm | 6 years and 8 months ago

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Obviously, the owner is in no position to deal with it. All your remedies — DOB, local govt pressure, anything that imposes a cost on the owner, is paradoxically going to make it harder. What needs to happen is for someone to buy this property and tear down or fix up (if possible) the house. There must be a reason why this hasn’t happened, something making the cost prohibitive, whether large tax liens or limits on what can be built. You and your neighbors could perhaps sue the owner on a nuisance theory, but that might be throwing good money after bad. You might consider looking up whether there is a mortgage on the property, contacting the bank, and then contacting your local electeds (if you have good ones) to put some pressure on the bank. There might be other ideas – I would spend some time playing around not only on BIS but ACRIS to see what you can learn about the owners, status of the property, lenders, etc. Other ideas might become apparent.

bigbowlofwrong | 6 years and 8 months ago

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Thanks for that advice. The owner appears to own the building right out, aside from the city fines there is nothing outstanding. She is elderly, lives out of state and appears to have simply abandoned the property. Fascinating to me – especially since she could net close to $1M if she sold it to a hungry developer!

slopefarm | 6 years and 8 months ago

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Interesting. Sometimes these old timers do not know their property’s worth. They are also at risk of underselling to the first fast-talking developer that comes along. You could reach out to her and offer to find and recommend someone reputable to market the property for her.