Foreclosed Properties

My question pertains to recourse for foreclosed properties which are now owned by the banks and are not being maintained. Let me elaborate. I live in Maryland where many of our properties have basements with sump pumps. When a house becomes empty, many time the power is shut off, which means the sump pumps will not run. Without the sump pumps, you now have a flooded house. A flooded house means mold. Mold means no one want s to buy the property so it continues to sit. Not to mention, it appears the banks have no interest in selling the property until the housing market recovers in an effort to recoup as much as possible without taking a loss.

So, we now have three empty house which are not listed, all flooded, and can't seem to determine which banks own them, not to mention, they probably won't care. We contacted the our county environmental control department going they would consider the homes a safety risk do to mold spurs and had no luck. Anyone have any suggestions/recommendations?

Having someone on the board in our community who does title searches as a profession, has been beneficial, but what we have noticed and confirmed through other sources is that banks and Fannie (as well) will not record the change of ownership right away. Sometimes, you can have an attorney or company check land records and see if the change in ownership has been recorded. When the grass gets over 1 ft high, we file a complaint through the county and then we see landscapers cutting the grass. Then I ask who he's working for. It's usually a Property Management company and we start sending them notices (calling them as well). Then they usually tell us who the new owner is. Next - As per HOA docs, suspend privileges for parking.

We had a similar case where the owners left the water on, the house froze, then thawed and there was water spewing from every floor front, back side, etc. I called the Water Authority and they cut the water off in 30 minutes. After that, I called the mortgage company and emailed them. They confirmed that they would send out their property mitigation team (which they never did). Two years later, when I found the lawnscaping contractor cutting the grass, I obtained the name of the P.M. and asked him to inspect inside for mold. I also reminded him that if the mold spreads to the adjacent townhomes, they could be held liable. Two days later, 6 trucks, 20 hazmat workers dressed in all white suits and masks and two large open dumpsters showed up. This townhouse (which sold for 525K in 2005) was completely stripped...all flooring, cabinets, vanities, all drywall, and carpeting. Now they for the last two months that have been working on restoring the interior. Right now, visitors, service vehicles, PMs, guests can only park in the driveway and they know this. Hopefully, since they cannot park in open visitor spaces at this time, they might be motivated to pay the post foreclosure HOA fees. We had a lien and and judgement outstanding on the previous owner (who has resurfaced at this time) and potentially, we might get something back on this. Collections attorney is handling all this. What's actually funny is the fact that the board members found the owner information much earlier than the attorney because Fannie had not recorded. That's just how they roll. I guess that they don't want us bugging them about maintenance and appearance issues.

The certainly probably owe you HOA assessements. Are you having an attorney file liens? Don't assume that their mortgages are all underwater (This I do not mean litterally).

Quite a few CC&R's do allow an association to enter a unit if the association believes that something is going on in the unit that could damage to adjacent units.

Even if not in the docs, I think one could easily obtain a court order to do so.

In the case of single, stand alone houses it could well be a different issue.