Landlord Cited for 8,000 Building Code Violations
If a local jurisdiction doesn’t have an effective enforcement system, whether it’s in court or at an administrative level, there will be no incentive for bad landlords to fix up their properties. There can be a lot of flaws in the system, prosecutors who aren’t aggressive enough, political pressure, courts that are overburdened with a variety of cases, or just an ineffective process for collecting fines. In Brooklyn, a landlord has amassed 8,000 violations but it has not resulted in an improvement in the buildings. Attempts to remedy the enforcement process at the state level results in heavy lobbying by special interests to prevent change. The tenants are the ones who suffer because they don’t have the lobbying power that those with polictical clout have.
