There’s been a lot of press coverage about the mess in foreclosure land because many of the affidavits filed to support foreclosure actions were signed by people who had no actual knowledge about the mortgage documents. Because of this, many of the banks have stopped proceeding on foreclosure actions until this issue is resolved. The Wall Street Journal has an informative story about this latest embarassment to the mortgage industry at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704049904575554372238256744.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories This is not good news for local jurisdictions who have been waiting for distressed properties to be taken back by the bank. I’ve seen properties where the owners have abandoned the property or don’t have the funds for the upkeep. I’ve sometimes advised clients to be patient and wait for the sheriff’s sale so we can send a notice of violation to the lender once it is in possession. With these delays, it means many properties will continue to deteriorate even more.
Often I get questions about deed restrictions and the role of the building official. Deed restrictions (also known as restrictive covenants) may prohibit a number of things including the building of certain structures such as fences, swimming pools or sheds on the property of the homeowner. When such a restriction is disregarded, the building official should not get involved unless a code violation has occurred, for example, building without a permit. The proper party to bring an action is the homeowners’ association. This happened in Horn v. Huffman, a Kentucky case, where the homeowners built a ground pool in violation of the restrictions. Eventually the association brought a lawsuit to force the owners to remove the pool. The association won in court.
It is even possible that a building official might have to issue a building permit for something forbidden by the deed restriction if the application is proper. While the building official may want to bring the applicant’s attention the fact that such a restriction exists, the building permit cannot be withheld based on the deed restriction alone.
There was an interesting article in the Chicago Tribune about the difficulties homeowners and businesses encounter with local jurisdictions when they want to use green technology, such as installing solar panels. Many jurisdictions are not prepared to address those requests because their codes have not kept up with the technology or inspectors don’t have the experience to do inspections in this area. Owners complain about increased costs because of the care local jurisdictions are taking before these installations are approved (e.g. hiring an engineer). Eventually as this type of innovation becomes more mainstream, these problems should decrease. You can find the story at http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/realestate/ct-mre-0926-solar-energy-hurdles-20100924,0,6693743.story
One of the greatest sources of satisfaction in my work is helping inspectors achieve observable results, e.g. the roof that gets fixed, the yard that gets cleaned up, finding the right owner to charge. Consequently, when I have difficulty reaching a goal, I get very frustrated. I can think of few situations that are more difficult to deal with than when I am dealing with an occupant or owner who appears to be suffering from a mental illness. All of the normal carrot and stick approaches don’t work, i.e. fines, court orders, contempt of court. Unfortunately it’s difficult to tell which came first, the illness or the lack of maintenance. I recognize that many hoarders suffer from OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) and others are dealing with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. Rational conversations are not often possible. Many of these individuals also lack family support, sometimes because their behavior has driven away the very people who could help them. While neighbors may be sympathetic (unless the person’s behavior has antagonized them as well), there comes a point where the neighbors just want the problem fixed. Many are willing to help the offender but usually the offender doesn’t want anyone to help them or doesn’t even recognize the problem. (Again, this may be due to the illness when paranoia is part of it). I’ve written in the past about my success with hoarders, bringing them into court and working closely on a schedule to bring the property into compliance. Most hoarders I’ve dealt with though haven’t lost touch with reality. It’s people who are somewhat delusional that are such a challenge. Sometimes the police can help if the person is a danger to his or herself or others but that’s the standard for involuntary commitment in my state and most mentally ill people don’t qualify. An alternative is a guardianship where a petition is filed with the court asking it to appoint someone to make the day to day decisions for the ill person because he or she is not competent to help his or herself. However, there has to be someone willing to file the lawsuit and take on the responsibility for the person’s care. I don’t think we can ignore problem properties by not issuing tickets for violations just because the offender is mentally ill. A sympathetic inspector who can gain the trust of the offender can get results by closely supervising the person’s progress. I’ve sometimes seen a person’s mental state improve as the residence looks better. If anyone out there has a magic solution, I’d love you to share it with my readers.
I’ve just been made aware of a terrific code enforcement conference for municipal attorneys in New Orleans on Oct. 9 and 10. It’s the Code Enforcement Program held in conjunction with the International Municipal Lawyers Association. There’s a lot of great topics, abating a nuisance, hoarders, 4th Amendment issues and more. You can find the registration form at http://www.imla.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=128&Itemid=319
I just read a terrific book about how we got into this financial mess, The Big Short, by Michael Lewis. Hardly anyone expected these subprime loans to be paid back and they didn’t care because that wasn’t how people in the financial sector were making money. They made their money selling the loans, trading the securities that made up the loans and betting against those securities, in other words betting that they were worthless. When the amount of loans weren’t sufficient to fuel the market, they created “synthetic collateral debt obligations” that bore some relationship to the loans but weren’t made up of them (don’t ask me, they didn’t even understand them). Some people are still making money off of the mess. One investor is buying up loans at a discount and then turning around and offering to reduce the principle of the loans to the homeowners for a modest markup, thereby reducing the amount of their monthly payments. It’s an interesting approach which you can read about at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704720004575377022447064474.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopStories
What struck me in learning about all of this was how incompetent most major players were on Wall Street. There was no relationship between the money they raked in and their smarts. The only value was greed.
I recognize that hoarding cases can be extremely time consuming to deal with and difficult for a property maintenance inspector because the person the inspector is dealing with is not rational about the state of the inside of the residence but I don’t think that’s a reason to do nothing. A woman died in her home in Skokie, IL and the only way to get her was to cut a hole in the roof in this story reported today. http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=395161 I had a case last week where the defendant pleaded guilty (he doesn’t even live in the home anymore but stays in an extended stay hotel due to the condition of the house) and the judge ordered him to remove the rubbish within 30 days. I had a picture of a dumpster on the property with just a small amount of items in it to show he hadn’t made much progress. The defendant said he couldn’t possibly do it within 30 days because of his physical condition. After quizzing him, the judge determined that he had the financial resources to hire someone to do it for him. Then the defendant argued that that wasn’t possible because that person wouldn’t know what to keep and what to throw away. The judge told him that he could do that by being the manager of the rubbish removal and he could give directions to the hired help. The defendant still protested but we’ll see next month if progress has been made.
I was recently at the Ravinia Festival, an outdoor park for music with my daughter. She bought me tickets to see a band and we were having a good time but then the singer urged the security guards at the entrances to the pavilion (where we were sitting) to let in people sitting on the lawn. The young ticket takers didn’t know what to do and patrons (who had been drinking) began to pour into the pavilion, filling up the aisles and the front of the stage. I turned to my daughter and said that the fire marshall wouldn’t like this. There was no way we would have been able to leave with this throng of people. It was also a hot, humid 90’s degree night. Thankfully there were only a few songs left until the end of the program and the band left the stage. The crowd cried for an encore but eventually some guy came out and had to be the bad guy, telling people without tickets for the pavilion they had to leave or the show couldn’t continue. By that time, police officers had arrived to oversee the exodus from the pavilion. The band eventually came back out but the singer decried the killing of rock and roll by not allowing people to be spontaneous and enjoy themselves. He later made mention that he knew the fire marshall was just doing his job but I was appalled by the ignorance of the danger involved in that type of setting. It did show how quickly a venue like that can respond to a threat and I have to give credit to the fire marshall for acting so fast in what could have been a volatile situation. My daughter’s plan to drag me behind the huge speakers a the edge of the stage if things got ugly never had to be implemented.
It’s that time of year again when I get questions about notice to offenders who don’t cut their grass. Some of the inspectors complain that owners of property rely on the notice the local jurisdiction sends them as a signal that it’s time to mow their lawn or property lot. The most frequent question I get is whether one notice is sufficient or whether a notice needs to be sent every time the property needs to be mowed again. It all depends on what your code says. If the code requires a notice before you can write a ticket, then that’s what you have to do. Owners take advantage of this because they cut the grass after they get the notice and before you can write a ticket. Then they wait until the next notice, cut the grass and wait until the next one. This really wastes the inspectors’ time. My suggestion is to amend the code’s notice provision (if you can do that depending on state and local law) so that one notice per season is sufficient. There’s no good reason any inspector should play babysitter to a landowner. The owner needs to supervise the property or pay the consequences.
My husband and I had a wonderful time in Japan but I couldn’t ignore some interesting differences. We stayed at a Japanese inn that was part of a Buddhist Temple up in the mountains one night. It was a typical Japanese accomodation with tatami mats, futons to sleep on and a low table. Our host showed us how to stay warm with the space heaters and a futon around the table. I’m posting a picture to see how it looked. Kerosene heaters are widespread as very few homes have central heating. There is also a heater under the table so you can wrap yourself in the futon and stay warm. This is quite common but one of the fire inspectors I showed the picture to was taken aback.
Japanese inn
We also visited many temples and shrines. Our guides told us that many of them are replicas of what had been there before. Apparently many of them burn down periodically and then are rebuilt. Some temples have been replaced numerous times over the centuries (they are wooden structures). The biggest danger of fire comes from lightning. If you look closely on the left of the picture of the temple, you can see lightning rods.
The Japanese were very advanced in earthquake technology. We saw temples built almost 800 years ago that had withstood earthquakes because of how the foundation was built. I was told that when a temple burns down and is rebuilt, the foundation is built to withstand earthquakes even though modern fire prevention methods e.g. sprinklers are not part of the replacement temple.
Buddhist temple
