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Under current law in our Commonwealth, local municipalities have few viable options when it comes to holding slumlords accountable for dilapidated properties they own.,
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Concerning the City of Reading, Pa.. What happened? I lived in a northern suburb, for 15 years. Prior to that, tenants had rights. Rental units had to be fit for human habitation, or they would not have been allowed to be rented. Tenants, especially those with children, would have had 90 days to vacate the premises, if an eviction was served. I returned to the city, about 5 years ago, and found over priced rentals that were very shabby, to say the least. - What has been done about it? A wall of shame? These slum lords have no shame! How does this help the tenants, to be treated like human beings? What happened to tenants rights? Can anyone tell me?
Posted by elmichle on 2012-05-20 23:53:23
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With few options to confront and hold slumlords accountable, many take the rental money and invest little if anythinig in their properties to maintain them. The result, blighted and abandoned properties. What is the result of these in our cities or boroughs:
Neighborhoods destroyed. It only takes a few houses to lower all property values.
- Reduce a community's overall property values and the annual property tax revenues desperately needed to provide municipal services. This stealsl the equity from nearby property owners.
- Drug dealers, prostitution and other criminal activities are hidden there.
- They provide easy targets for arsonists.
- Public's health and safety is endangered through infestations of rodents and other pests.
- It makes development almost impossible
- It ruins the reputation of the community.
Why hasn't this been addressed previously?
Undeer current law when a property becomes dilapidated, the owner can simply walk away, abandoning it with thousands of dollars of unpaid taxes and sewer and water bills unpaid. Municipalities have no way to go after these criminals. And who pays for all this? It is the taxpayers who are paying doing their part, paying their taxes and maintaining their properties. The back taxes and fees often are much higher than the value of the property. So even if it is condemned and sold, due to its poor condition, the value is often much less than the outstanding bill.
Under the proposed historic legislation, a municipality in Pennsylvania would be able to place leins against any and all assets of a slumlord to pay to bring a blighted property up to code or to tear it down, including all legal costs. The individual or corporate owner that created the mess would be responsible to pay for cleaning it up - not the taxpayers.
Most significantly, municipalities would be able to deny owners of blighted properties municipal permits and approvals for other properties they own anywhere in Pennsylvania, until the blighted property was brought up to code standards or demolished.
And out-of-state owners of blighted and abandoned properties would be brought back to Pennsylvania to face criminal prosecution. This is long overdue.
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