How Do We Fix This?
Case Study
California cities such as Richmond have already started to enforce the foreclosure maintenance laws and issued fines to banks who have failed to maintain their foreclosed properties.
They have already issued approximately $1 million in fine revenue based on a handful of foreclosures.
Richmond has 900 foreclosures, the City of Los Angeles has 25,000 and approximately 7,000 are completely bank owned. (Source: Realty Trac).
Fixing the mess the banks have created here in Los Angeles means cleaning up the blight they've left in our neighborhood.
In California, lawmakers passed the Mortgage Relief Bill (SB 1137), a state law that mandates banks maintain foreclosed properties or be fined.
· The bill authorizes the City of Los Angeles to impose $1,000 per violation per day in penalties for failure to maintain a property.
· On December 11, 2009, the City Council unanimously voted to implement the enforcement program. It would establish registration and maintenance requirements and associated fees and fines for properties in foreclosure in the City of Los Angeles.