Just a Landlord

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders describes hoarding as a mental disability and therefore most likely covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Federal Fair Housing Act.  As such property owners are required to make reasonable accommodations. I would concur with this.

However there is also the health and safety exception to the reasonable accommodation requirement. This is where it gets difficult for the property owner, those doing social intervention and of course the person with the hoarding behavior. Hoarding can contribute to issues like insect and rodent infestations. Hoarding also can create fire hazards. Often hoarding is a violation of the local housing codes.

In response to a reasonable accommodation request an owner would have to balance the actual risk to health and safety to determine if the request was reasonable or not. Note actual risk and not potential risk that are not directly related to this tenant or applicant.

The ability for an owner to address the situation in a manner that does not involve eviction is often hampered by DNS’ response of placarding or threatening to placard buildings due to clutter and housekeeping. A few years ago I had a long term (~15 years) tenant who always kept her house immaculate until her son was murdered. After that she would not get rid of anything. We had to evict her due to the threat of placarding.

In my view, especially after that case, is hoarding is a disability. Having some sort of intervention available other than homelessness is the right thing.

There is the newly formed Milwaukee County Hoarding Task Force. I think this is a great potential resource not only for those with the disability but to help people in our industry make proper decisions in response to finding hoarding and or clutter at the properties.

I invited the Task Force to submit an article for the Apartment Association newsletter as well as speak at a future meeting if they wish and/or distribute informational materials at our meetings.

It appears the Metropolitan Omaha Property Owners Association’s lawsuit against their code enforcement will settle favorably for the owners.

1,000 Omaha rental property owners  filed a federal lawsuit in July 2013 alleging arbitrary and capricious enforcement of the city’s housing code.  Speaking to a couple of the owners their complaints are similar to ours, including the city ignoring owner occupied properties in disrepair while enforcing stringently on rental homes.

From the Federal complaint:

The City of Omaha has not adopted any specific rules, regulations, or interpretations of its very broad and general housing code. Instead, the City of Omaha has unlawfully designated the ability to make, interpret, and enforce Omaha housing law (including through unconstitutional means) on a case-by-case basis solely upon the unfettered discretion of each of its code inspectors. The system has no uniformity, consistency, or standard operating procedure and has fostered gross abuses, hardship, and violations of Federal and State Constitutional rights upon Omaha property owners. There are no adequate safeguards or protections in place and Omaha property owners are left without an adequate remedy or meaningful judicial review under State law.

Read the full complaint here.  Link to other case files

The Omaha World-Herald is reporting:

A proposed lawsuit settlement agreement between the City of Omaha and a landlord group faces questions and amendments when it goes before the Omaha City Council on Tuesday.

The agreement would settle a federal lawsuit filed against the city by the Metropolitan Omaha Property Owners Association.

The agreement includes an overhaul of the city’s ordinances and procedures on housing code enforcement.

It also includes a consent decree under which the landlords could haul the city back into U.S. District Court if the city changed those codes or procedures in the future.

Let’s assume the “broken windows” theory is correct.  It makes sense – order begets order, chaos and disarray breeds more chaos.  It makes sense logically, whether or not you can quantify the results I’ll leave to those much smarter than I.

However,  Milwaukee attempts to repurpose the theory as an argument for greater rental housing code enforcement and nuisance enforcement aimed primarily at rental housing.  In doing so our city has undermined the true message, which is: For the broken windows theory to produce results an entire neighborhood must be held to a standard.  The researchers use “neighborhood order” to describe the goal.

The article is primarily about police and neighbor intervention into petty crime creates order that reduces other petty crime and larger problems.  The words landlord, rent, code enforcement, building inspection do not appear anywhere in the article. Yet, to hear Milwaukee officials speak of the broken window theory, they frame it as a landlord’s responsibly.

A walk down 5th Place, the original target for the expansion of the RIP (rental inspection program), will show a far greater number of owner occupied housing in serious disrepair* than rental houses.  Milwaukee senior assessor Mary Hennen stated under oath a couple of years ago similarly that owner occupied housing in these neighborhoods are often in worse condition than rentals.

As an apparent precursor to the RIP proposal , on September 3rd and 4th,2014 DNS sent a squadron of five inspectors down Fifth Place for a block sweep.  Although the inspectors were able to see and write up some fairly minor problems on rental homes, amazingly when it came to the owner occupied houses on this street these five inspectors missed a dozen failed roofs, half a dozen failed porches, a couple of chimneys that looked about to fall and one house that is failing structurally.  Sixteen owner occupied properties in total that were as bad or worse than the seventeen rentals on the street that received orders. They also missed the two abandoned structures that should have been sent to raze, properties with actual broken windows.  My first two trips down the block had city lots strewn with trash.  I’ll guess that they were afraid someone would point that out in a RIP hearing.  They were clean on my third and forth trip.

Of the two properties that I saw blatant drug dealing coming from on three of my trips down the block this fall, one was owner occupied and the other owned by a guy who lives in the district on 15th and Cleveland. Far from the stereotypical absentee landlord.

If the RIP as well as other code initiatives are truly about stabilizing the neighborhoods, then plans must be in place to address the owner occupied and city owned properties that also drag down the neighborhood.

Tim Ballering

Tim@ApartmentsMilwaukee.com

*I consider serious disrepair as failed roofs, dangerous porches, crumbling chimneys and structural failure.

On Nov 30, 2014, on the ApartmentAssoc Yahoo Group  Bill Lauer wrote:

The previous article entitled “Broken Windows” really isn’t about broken windows.  It is about a theory that first showed up in the early 1980s [Link] and influences many of today’s social policies that impact our businesses every day.  Researchers in New York parked a car with no license plates on it, on a busy street. In a very short period of time, everything of value was stripped from it. Likewise, if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. They concluded that somehow the disrepair brought more disrepair.  Likewise, if crimes like jaywalking and panhandling are allowed, then more felonious crimes will follow.

The recent public hearings on the expansion of the Rental Inspection Program indicate several inner-city alders believe that because certain neighborhoods are run down, that crime is attracted to those neighborhoods.  But if memory serves me correctly, these same neighborhoods had huge crime problems before the neighborhoods were runned down.  Could it be that something else attracted the criminal element? Could it be true that because criminals do not maintain property very well that over time, neighborhoods end up in disrepair? They see the disrepair as the fault of greedy landlords, instead of seeing the landlords as the victims of the criminals.

One Alder literally said that the RIP was a tool to break up these “hot spots” of criminal activity. This strategy scatters criminal activity into surrounding neighborhoods rather than deal with the problem where it is. The mayor’s budget hires more building inspectors and reduces the number of armed police, which is contrary to the original research which says that police presence was needed to make positive change.

For the last 20 years, as “hot spots” break up and houses get bulldozed, and criminals need housing, they move into unsuspecting neighborhoods. That is why we are seeing crime increase (again) in Bay View, West Allis, Sherman Park, St, Joe’s area, just to name a few. The strategy employed in the RIP has not worked. But a new generation of politicians refuse to learn the lessons of the past and want to try this stuff again with a new name. They continue to make the buildings the problem rather than the people who live there.

The article is a long read but makes very interesting points that are useful in our discussions with our politicians.  It gives some insight into the crazy policies that are coming from city hall. But most importantly it points to the need for landlords to organize and become vocal about our experience working in Milwaukee.

 Bill Lauer

John Shoemaker is one of the nation’s leading attorneys in the defense of the rights of rental property owners , and subsequently the rights of low income residents who live in rented housing.  He specifically addresses Milwaukee and its HUD Grant application in this letter.  I share this with letter with his permission.  It’s long, but if you intend to be part of low to moderate income housing you need to read this. — Tim Ballering

October 22, 2014

Tim:

I am following up to my recent emails to you about the legal challenges private low-income housing providers have made in Federal District Court in the Twin Cities since 2004.

We are in our 10th year of federal litigation against Twin Cities’ municipalities, with six federal (Minnesota District) lawsuits still active (four lawsuits vs. the City of St. Paul – 14 total housing providers as plaintiffs: the three Gallagher vs. Magner consolidated cases that were before the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011-12, now awaiting trial; and the McRath vs. St. Paul case in discovery; and two lawsuits recently filed vs. Minneapolis – two providers as plaintiffs: Folger vs Minneapolis, Court File 13-cv-3489; and Ellis vs. HUD and Minneapolis, Court File 14-cv-3045).  Recently, the federal court allowed housing provider Folger’s Fair Housing disparate impact lawsuit against Minneapolis to move past a motion to dismiss and that case is now in discovery. There are approximately 200 properties directly involved in these matters but the outcome of the litigation will impact hundreds if not thousands of other low-income properties.

Outside of these federal lawsuits, we have rarely seen much organized opposition from private real estate investors in response to oppressive public sector housing policies and actions.  This is so even though the local government policies negatively impact the return on investment and incentives to continue providing affordable housing offered by the private market, and negatively impact the availability of such housing at rental rates that are affordable at under 30% of area median income.

Municipalities benefit from this lack of organization among private low-income housing market participants by focusing police power and public resources against each investor one at a time, picking off good, honest, hard-working Americans through ever-increasingly high regulatory standards, confiscatory fees, assessments and fines, targeted enforcement actions, other regulatory burdens and outright illegal policies and conduct.  Low-income citizens who seek safe, decent and sanitary housing in the inner-city communities from private providers, suffer as the public sector actions cause displacement and keep housing units offline for longer periods of time than would be the case if the private market was allowed to operate within traditional legal boundaries, without oppressive local government regulation and illegal policies and conduct.

Challenging these illegal public policies and actions through litigation is not the best option in many situations as the heavy burden of court costs, attorney’s fees and expert fees is barrier to most owners of low-income housing pursuing redress of injuries against local governments.  Owners usually experience an extended period of forced reduction in rental income and related dramatic increase in expenses directly from oppressive, targeted government actions against them. In a marketplace where profit margins are thin, local governments tend to drain private investor’s resources through heavy every day regulatory costs, so by the time litigation may be an option to preserve the portfolio and lifetime of investment, financial resources to carry the battle to court may be few. Many owners have drained available financial resources by the time they decide they need assistance in their fight.  Many owners simply choose to walk away from their investment as they have no remaining resources to fight for extended periods and are unable to retain legal counsel to preserve their rights and fight for change.  Nevertheless, in certain instances, litigation would be the best option where fighting back to save a rental portfolio is deemed necessary, especially if damages are significant or the threat of losing everything is very real and present.

 What if private housing providers organized on a national, regional and/or state level and pooled their resources and joined the cause?  That might move the process of change forward, albeit slowly over an extended period of time.  One strategy might be to pool resources of time, talent and money for not just litigation but also lobbying at the local and state levels to publicly voice opposition to harmful public housing and related policies and advocate for reasoned approaches that preserve property rights, liberties, affordable housing and investments.  We might consider creating a national or regional group of interested and experienced leaders and counsel to roundtable on these issues, including litigation strategies and to examine possible formation of citizen-investor groups to focus on selected municipalities where the fight is particularly advantageous to our cause.

There are other options for real estate investors in the low-income housing market outside the Court process and normal city council hearing process to address these legitimate concerns.

Private housing providers are eligible to file Complaints with the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”).  We have filed three Housing Discrimination Complaints for a total of 16 housing providers and other interested parties with HUD since November 2012. HUD has not been cooperative and has taken every opportunity to delay having to accept complaints and to investigate complaints by private housing providers against local municipalities.   This obstructive behavior by HUD arises I believe from the political animal HUD truly is, especially where the local government leaders are of the same political party as those in the Administration in Washington.

We have started the process this year of bringing HUD into the federal litigation as an interested party under the theory that federal law requires HUD to monitor and take actions to curtail violations of federal law by local governments and their officials.  HUD has a federal statutory duty to honestly monitor and hold accountable local governments that receive federal grant funds where complaints are presented to HUD of wrongdoing by those jurisdictions. Courts have held HUD liable for damages and injunctive relief where HUD has continued to fund local entities with knowledge of discriminatory policies at the local level.  Minneapolis and HUD have notified us that they will be seeking dismissal of the most recent lawsuit in January 2015.

While it might not be a cure-all, I believe the private housing providers must speak up at the local government level during the federal grant funding process.

Milwaukee is a yearly recipient of federal grants, including a number of grants administered by HUD.  Milwaukee is recognized as an “Entitlement Jurisdiction” for federal HUD funding purposes which means the City applies to and obtains the grants from HUD directly, versus through the State of Wisconsin.  One major grant program is called the Community Development Block Grant program, “CDBG”. As a federal grant funded Entitlement Jurisdiction, Milwaukee must conduct an “analysis of impediments to fair housing choice” (“AI”), every 3-5 years, although HUD strongly recommends each City receiving CDBG funds review the “AI” every year. The official definition of an “AI” is found in HUD’s Fair Housing Planning Guide (“FHPG”), see attached and see http://www.hud.gov/offices/fheo/images/fhpg.pdf

The “AI” is a review of impediments to fair housing choice in the public and private sector. The AI involves:

• A comprehensive review of a State or Entitlement jurisdiction’s laws, regulations, and administrative policies, procedures, and practices
• An assessment of how those laws, etc. affect the location, availability, and accessibility of housing
• An assessment of conditions, both public and private, affecting fair housing choice for all protected classes
• An assessment of the availability of affordable, accessible housing in a range of unit sizes.
• The FHPG (Sections 2-16 to 2-17), provides: “Impediments to fair housing choice are defined as:
• Any actions, omissions, or decisions taken because of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin that restrict housing choices or the availability of housing choice
• Any actions, omissions, or decisions that have this effect.  (Note: This means, “Disparate impact”).
• Policies, practices, or procedures that appear neutral on their face, but which operate to deny or adversely affect the availability of housing to persons because of race, ethnicity, disability, and families with children may constitute such impediments. (“Disparate impact”).
• Have the effect of restricting housing opportunities on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, disability, familial status, or national origin.  (“Disparate impact”).
• HUD’s FHPG provides that Milwaukee must analyze the following subjects of City laws, policies and actions on how those laws, policies or actions affect housing choice for low income and protected class members:

4.3       AI SUBJECT AREAS

Public Sector

1. Local building, occupancy, and health and safety codes that may affect the availability of housing for minorities, families with children, and persons with disabilities, such information should be available through a review of local laws and ordinances relating to these subjects.
2. Public Sector – other actions –

• Building codes
• Local zoning laws and policies (e.g., minimum lot size requirements, dispersal requirements for housing facilities for persons with disabilities in single-family zones, and restrictions on the number of unrelated persons in dwellings based on size of unit or number of bedrooms)
• Demolition and displacement decisions pertaining to assisted housing and the removal of slums and blight (e.g., relocation policies and practices affecting persons displaced by urban renewal, revitalization, and/or private commercialization or gentrification in low-income neighborhoods)

Federal grant funding to Milwaukee, that includes CDBG, is processed under a Consolidated Planning process whereby: (1) every 5 years, a Consolidated Plan is prepared by Milwaukee with citizen participation and submitted to HUD showing the five year plan; and (2) every year during the five year period the City must provide HUD with an Action Plan and a CAPER (Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report). By providing detailed financial and beneficiary information in the CAPER, the City explains to HUD and the community how the City is carrying out its housing and community development strategies, projects, and activities.

Milwaukee is now near the end in the process of preparing its five year Consolidated Plan submission for 2015-2019 to HUD.  Part of the required Con Plan process is Citizen Participation [footnote 1], where the City must hold hearings and provide access to Plan information and documentation for community members to review and submit oral and written comments about the City’s plans for using federal grant funds during the next 5 year period. See http://city.milwaukee.gov/NeighborhoodStabilizationProgramNSP/NSP-Meetings—Con-Plan.htm#.VEhAXBYzISg

It seems that most of the meetings/hearings on NSP occurred in March 2014.  But, some meetings and or hearings on the 2015-19 Con Plan may still be on-going.  https://www.facebook.com/events/468204259974633/

Meeting occurred in March 2014.  See http://urbanmilwaukee.com/pressrelease/public-invited-to-offer-feedback-on-spending-plan-for-federal-funds/

states period to comment would end July 2014.

However, HUD says that Complaints about how the City’s housing policies and actions have negatively impacted low-income housing providers and their customers (tenants), impacting the availability of affordable housing and the incentives to continue to provide such housing, can be submitted to the City and/or to HUD at any time.   http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/program_offices/fair_housing_equal_opp/complaint-process

I have attached a copy of the draft HUD Consolidate Plan submission for Milwaukee for 2015-2019.

While there are many interesting bits of information in the Plan, see page 8 – City’s proposed code enforcement efforts in next 5 years.

Barriers to affordable housing, see page 103.

See also pages 139 (City goals summary including code enforcement, lead based paint abatement, demo), page 142-43, 146 (homeowner vs rental production- but most blacks need rental).

Also note that Milwaukee is planning on acquiring more vacant homes including foreclosure properties.

 We have discovered here in the Twin Cities, that Cities acquire claimed distressed properties (including those that the City acquired after targeting them) and then hold those properties off market for 3-5 or more years – until they have the money to develop them from federal or other sources and so as they claim, stabilize the real estate market in the inner city.  Through use of a land bank concept, the properties are off-limits to the private market much like the “First Look” program whereby bank REO properties in the inner-city are offered first off-the-books to local governments and NGOs, thereby prohibiting private market acquisition. We learned of this policies through the Cities’ applications for federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program grants (NSP) funding from 2009 and thereafter.

You will be able to learn more about Milwaukee’s use of NSP grants and the issues I have raised herein by looking at the City’s website on NSP funding – see the following link: http://city.milwaukee.gov/NeighborhoodStabilizationProgramNSP.htm#.VEg2DRYzISg

Here in the Twin Cities, we have local government policies that interfere with the normal “ups and downs” of the real estate market and exacerbate the affordable housing crisis.  These local government policies prohibit transfer of ownership of vacant homes without local government approval and require massive investment into claimed distressed homes before re-occupancy. These policies have directly led to an extended period of blight in the inner-city as the normal 300-400 annual vacant homes in St. Paul has continued for eight years at 4-8 times those levels, including above 2,000-2,400 for a number of years.   These local government policies extend the high number of vacant homes for longer periods thereby allowing local governments to control the disposition, ownership and use of these homes.

The continuation of these policies year after year has negatively impacted property (sales) values of homes including older rental properties; however, the tax assessments are continuing at high valuation levels.

Combined City efforts of heavy, targeted code enforcement and high rates of demolitions with associated demo assessments, along with the high number of foreclosures and vacant homes, has led to a golden opportunity for local governments to acquire these claimed distressed properties.  City acquisition of large numbers of claimed distressed properties and the policy of holding those properties offline from sale and redevelopment, along with the lack of production of significant numbers of new affordable rental units for those at under 30% AMI, has exacerbated the unavailability of affordable older housing to meet the high demand for rental housing.

Here, local government documents demonstrate that City officials are seeking to keep private investors from acquiring distressed properties; are placing deed restrictions on renovated homes prohibiting rentals; city policies are de-converting multi-unit rental buildings and homes to smaller number of allowed units – duplexes de-converted to single family homes, and 4-plexes to duplexes.  There are thousands of vacant homes that could be quickly and economically repaired to reasonable housing standards and let out to those in need of rental housing. Instead local governments are requiring massive renovation investment to City-approved standards (including Green Energy) in order to re-occupy these homes.

Federal, state and foundational funding is insufficient to renovate the inner-city older housing stock yet the City will allocate federal funds to each project at levels many times above the amount the private market would or could justify.  Government funding for the expensive renovation and subsidies for new owners, is actually wasted while claiming to develop and preserve affordable housing.  A small portion of the overall Millions in grant and other government funds currently being committed yearly to the government and NGO renovation projects producing a small number of housing units, could be provided to the private market for repairs and commonsense renovations.

With the high demand for affordable rental housing units by poor, minority families, a reasoned argument can be made that available government funds should be spent first on policies that ensure there are enough affordable housing units for most of those in need with ability to pay.  The private market has the time-tested solutions for issues related to timely production of safe, decent and sanitary rental units including renovated units to reasonable standards.  Instead, local government policies are focused on prohibiting the private market solutions and producing expensive renovations to a limited number of homes in the large pool of vacant homes. Government policies like this in the short term only produce minimal numbers of available units and most of them for home-owners only.  It also keeps thousands of low-income and minority families on the waiting lists for affordable housing.

Again, thank you for your interest in our fight for justice here in the Twin Cities.

I look forward to discussing these issues with you.

John

John R. Shoemaker

Attorney at Law

SHOEMAKER & SHOEMAKER, PLLC

Highland Bank Building

5270 West 84th Street

Suite 410

Bloomington, MN 55437

(952) 224-4610

P.S:  In July 2013, HUD proposed a federal regulatory rule called, “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing” that has long been a federal funding requirement of all Entitlement Jurisdictions, including Milwaukee. Section 808(e)(5) of the Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. 3608(e)(5)) requires that HUD programs and activities be administered [including by grant recipients) in a manner affirmatively to further the policies of the Fair Housing Act.

The new AFFH rule replaces the “AI” process with a Fair Housing Assessment.

To review the new AFFH rule, see https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/07/19/2013-16751/affirmatively-furthering-fair-housing

Final action by HUD on the new AFFH rule is expected in December 2014.

HUD says the AFFH rule is designed to lower the number of lawsuits against local government units.

 HUD Fair Housing Planning Guide

Milwaukee_ConPlandraft-June182014 copy

Over on the ApartmentAssoc Yahoo Group we had a discussion about the number of foreclosed properties Milwaukee has for sale and how the city limits sales to owner occupants.  Orv Seymor replied:

You are missing the point, the city does not want any investors buying or rehabbing any of these properties.

They want control over the entire rental market in Milwaukee or they want to be able to say that they made these bldgs. available on the private market before they tore them down and built new housing with taxpayer dollars, which again, would give them control over the entire  rental market in Milwaukee.

You see, they cannot stand to see anyone make a profit when they in the  housing business

I believe the City’s motivation is more perverse than even Orv’s opinion.

Rather than trying to control the entire rental market and therein the profits as Orv suggests, I would argue these sales restrictions by the city are just another part of the process in which the City’s attempts to exclude the poor and racial minorities from Milwaukee.

Other tools in the City’s toolbox include excessive property tax assessments of lower valued neighborhoods, disparate code enforcement practices that ignores worse conditions at owner occupied housing, while excessive enforcement of even petty violations on rental housing occupied by poorer or racial minority tenants, as well as differential rules for owner occupied and rental housing.

Evidence of this argument? Look at sales of Milwaukee Eastside, Southwest Side and Bayview homes, cash or conventional financing, compared to their assessments. Then do the same with sales, cash or conventional financing, of properties in the 12th or 15th Aldermanic Districts. Those in the higher valued neighborhoods are selling at or above the assessment, while those in the lower valued neighborhoods are selling for often less than 35% of assessment. The effect is lower income occupants have a higher tax burden than more expensive homes as a percentage of their home’s value.

The next time you get an exterior order take a look around the block. Look up the neighboring properties that are in similar or worse condition on the City’s property information site. Most often you will see the owner occupied properties, and even those were the tenants more closely match the race of the neighbors, are ignored. You may, with a bunch of effort, even find the Alderman was behind the complaint. If the City truly thought this was legal, why do they fight so hard to hide the fact that city employees or officials were the complainant .

Then make a complaint to DNS on those adjoining properties and demand that DNS holds these adjoining properties to the same standard as they hold yours. If you are extremely persistent they may even write orders on the worst of those neighboring properties. Go back and review the records and the properties six months later. Often you will find the orders on those adjoining properties show on the City’s computer as being complied with, even though many of the violations remain. The disparity is so ingrained that when asked, the inspectors often justify their actions with social economical arguments that have nothing to do with codes or housing conditions.

On our properties I document these things with written complaints, screenshots of city records and, in aggregate, thousands of photos of our properties and those adjoining. I urge you to do the same. If you wish to share your documentation with me that would be great.

In part Milwaukee stole a page from the St Paul MN playbook, as evidenced by writings between our former Commissioner of DNS and his St Paul counterpart that were obtained by St Paul, MN landlords’ during discover in one of many federal cases St Paul landlords have filed against their city’s (alleged) discriminatory and disparate inspection practices. One St Paul case was accepted by the US Supreme Court only to have the Obama Administration pressure St Paul into dropping their bid for review by the SCOTUS on the eve of oral arguments.

A St Paul official expressed the view at a public hearing that if you ‘Get rid of the nest, you get rid of the vermin’ (Not at the office to grab the actual quote, but this is close) It seems like this too was a sentiment adopted by Milwaukee’s leadership and those sentiment have spread to surrounding communities. Make it impossible to provide housing for certain classes of people to live in your city and they all go away.

Disparate housing code enforcement, rules affecting only certain classes of properties, property tax assessment schemes that put greater burdens on poorer neighborhoods and restrictions on purchasing, all aimed at making it difficult or unreasonable for members of protected classes to live in a city is not proper use of police powers. Preventing these type of discriminatory policies is really the foundation of all Fair Housing laws.

If a city is to employee housing code enforcement and property tax assessment in a manner to drive out certain social economic groups, then those efforts should be funded by the kkk, not taxpayers.

In the past week I have had three owners ask about pools.  First, let me say this is much better than the questions about ice dams that we get most of the year.  😉

If your lease is silent on pools, you may use the Wisconsin state law that requires your tenant to comply with local housing codes.

§707.07(3) (c)  A tenant in a residential tenancy shall comply with a local housing code applicable to the premises.

Milwaukee Ordinance define the requirement for pools, starting at 75-20-5

“PERMIT REQUIRED. In addition to the requirements of ch. SPS 390, Wis. Adm. Code, no person shall construct, install, enlarge, establish, maintain or make any alteration to any public swimming place or any outdoor private swimming place without a pool construction permit issued by the commissioner.”

If your tenant is a month to month you must give them a 14 day termination.  I suggest if they were otherwise good tenant that you include language such as “We will vacate this notice only if you remove the pool within 48 hours conditioned on not reinstalling a pool in the future without first obtaining all permits and complying with all City regulations”.   Attached a copy of the Milwaukee pool regulations.

If you use a year lease you must give them a 5 day breach notice, allowing them 5 days to remove the pool or be evicted.

Why are owners against pools, don’t they want the tenants to enjoy summer?  Pools are dangerous even when installed with proper fencing etc.

• An average of 3,533 fatal unintentional drownings (non-boating related) annually in the United States
• About  one in five people who die from drowning are children 14 and younger.
• For every child who dies from drowning, another five receive emergency department care for nonfatal submersion injuries.

Four  years ago I wrote of a scary trend I saw emerging, Zombie Housing.  These are homes that lenders begin foreclosures on but never take title.  This leads to homes that cannot be sold due to the liens upon them.  While these houses sit vacant they are vandalized beyond repair.  Yet the owners, who think they are the former owners,  remain on the hook for city fines, taxes, demolitions and liability for injuries.

No one paid much attention to this.  However this past week  the Wisconsin Court of Appeals issued a recommended for publication decision in Bank of New York v. Carson to address foreclosed, abandoned properties and force their sale upon expiration of a five week redemption period.

¶16 In sum, because the trial court had the authority pursuant to WIS. STAT. § 846.102 to amend the judgment to find the property at 1422 West Concordia Avenue abandoned, and because the trial court had the authority to order a sale of the property upon the expiration of the statutorily designated redemption period, we conclude that the trial court erred as a matter of law in deciding that it did not have this authority

In the short term this ruling will put a lot of properties on the market, most of which have now been stripped of all value and will ultimately face the bulldozer.

A current question is “Are banks required under current law to take title if no one bids at auction?” If the answer is yes I will assume a lot of banks will do the reasonable thing from their perspective and not foreclose on mortgages if the property is abandoned and of little value. Instead they may sue for a money judgement on the note.  I’ve seen cases where banks have done this on near Northside rental properties. The banks can also simply do nothing and abandon their interest or issue satisfactions on nonperforming loans on abandoned properties and wash their hands of any legal responsibilities.

If the banks respond in this manner it will make the problem much worse and it is unlikely current legislation can hold the bank to the financial responsibilities of those properties if they do not foreclose.

Reuters had an interesting article on Zombie Housing that was referenced by the Court of Appeals.

So the foreclosure crisis is far from over in areas where property values are low and city regulation of lenders in possession are tough.

Interesting paper on forced ownership i.e. prohibitions against abandonment by owners or lenders

Forcings by Lee Anne Fennell::SSRN

Despite some efforts to force lenders to foreclose when mortgagors vacate the premises and cease paying, defaulting mortgagors may be forced to retain ownership and the obligations that follow from it—including liability for homeowner association dues. A sale of the property is often blocked by the fact that the mortgage balance far exceeds the likely sales price. The inability of the homeowner to come up with the difference locks her into ownership, unless the lender either agrees to a short sale or forecloses on the property—and it may legally choose to do neither.

The Journal had an article last week wherein city officials were lamenting about the effects of foreclosures on the quality of life in Milwaukee. Below is my experiences as we put a number of properties back on line without any government funding.

Short version

Think twice before buying foreclosures in Milwaukee as the city will add unnecessary costs and aggravation to your project.

Longer version:

We were buying a number of foreclosures over the past two years.  We would go in fix them up and put them back on line.  This was good for the city in general in that the properties would remain on the tax rolls rather than being vandalized and ultimately bulldozed.  This is good for neighbors in that these were no longer boarded eyesores.  It was good for the people we employ as it kept them working and in fact resulting in a couple of additional full time positions. And of course it was good for our company or we would not have purchased the properties.

About a year ago the purchasing became more difficult. Not because there was no inventory, there was more property available in our market than ever.  Not because prices were rising, prices were actually the lowest I’ve since 1985.  No, the problem was that the selling banks were now verifying how much was outstanding in city taxes and city fines/fees before they accepted the offer.  If the city had too much in junk fees the banks would walk from the deal and apparently let the property revert to the city for back taxes. After a while the property is  vandalized to the point they have no economic value and are beyond rehab.

We had three offers that listing agents said our offers were solid, but the amount due the city in taxes, fines and fees exceeded that value.  All three properties dropped off MLS.  A couple of weeks ago I noted two remain boarded, vacant and today, a year later, vandalized. The third address I did not go by recently.

Here is another property I anticipate will revert to the city before long and will end up bulldozed instrad of on the active tax roll

At the beginning of this year the city threw yet another wrench into the process of putting boarded vacant and often vandalized properties back on line.  It used to be that only houses with orders to obtain a certificate of occupancy were required to go through this.  If you are unfamiliar with the process it involves paying for an expensive permit, then electrical, construction, plumbing and code compliance inspectors come through and find anything they think maybe a code violation.  They then require you to get plumbing, electrical and construction permits. They look at the dates on water heaters, furnaces etc and issue quad fee permits if someone in the ownership chain upgraded without permits.

Certificate of occupancies require odd expensive things.  In one such inspection we had a house with 1 1/4″ cast iron drain pipes for the bathtub.  Obviously this was installed either during original construction or sometime not too far after as all drains today are PVC and for many years before PVC was common drains were galvanized steel.  Cast iron is hard to work with, hard or impossible to find and expensive if you can find it.  The drains worked fine and did not leak, but the inspector ordered the drains changed to 1 1/2″ at a cost of nearly $1,800.

Back in October we bought a nice little single family on South 15th Place. The interior was in amazingly good condition and we had it rented a couple weeks after purchase.

There were a handful of minor exterior orders prior to our purchase.  These orders were issued upon the prior owner in September.  Even though the orders would have to be dismissed and reissued upon sale, we began them the Monday after the purchase. We also sided the property, which was not on the order.  The inspector signs the order off shortly thereafter.  Then the same inspector issues eight items on two notice letters in November.  It appears nothing on these notices were on the original September notice.  Petty, petty stuff – fine we do it a few days after we receive it.   Inspector signs it off. So far just a PITA and a waste of taxpayer money as well as wasting our money having staff chase a seemingly never ending list of things to do.

Same inspector comes back in December for the certificate of exterior code compliance. This inspection is required when you buy a one or two family rental property.  Four more petty, petty “violations” but this time he now also wants an occupancy permit.  I call his supervisor and am told it is now their policy to demand occupancy permits for anything they think was vacant for more than six months even if no order exists.  He even threatened to have the tenants removed.  At least his boss put an end to that nonsense.

Then in January we get a letter from the vacant building program. We responded that the inspector has seen the property occupied at least three times.  The person who answers the phone for the vacant building registration program says it doesn’t matter that an inspector saw tenants there in October, November and December, we need an appointment to meet you there to confirm it is occupied. And it wasn’t just one inspector that they may not have trusted enough to confirm occupancy, by then we had the certificate of occupancy inspections as well so three more inspectors were through the place and saw it occupied. Yet we had to meet someone from DNS there to prove it occupied.   You just cannot make stuff like this up…

Not an isolated incident:

This same inspector on another exterior code compliance application wrote defective siding on a house that was vinyl sided. I could not see any siding code violation.  I meet him there.  We walk around the house a couple of times because he is having a hard time finding what he wrote up. He points out an inch and a half crack in a piece of J channel by the back door and what may or may not be a missing shake on a gable end.  I pointed out the house adjoining our to the north as well as one across the street should be placarded due to the condition they are in. The inspector agreed with my comment that ours was the best on the block – and this is a highly visible block on an arterial street on the Southside.  Here are pictures of this property on the day of inspection as well as those neighboring it.

The larger effect of this:

I’m sure DNS and the city is all giddy over the hundreds of dollars in permits they collect from each property under their current scheme.  However, this is short term expedient and long term costly for the city.

As the city continues to make it more expensive and difficult to turn around vacant homes there will be an increasing number of properties that are no longer economically viable to rehab. This results in more houses being bulldozed and taken off the tax rolls due to unchecked vandalism and theft of anything metal inside them.

Despite what the City Assessor espouses, boarded, vacant, vandalized properties suppress all property values in their immediate neighborhood.

As more properties leave the tax roll the city will be forced to try and squeeze more money out of those that are left while providing less services.

The current city attitude is a no win for everyone.

Bottom line:

If you are thinking of buying foreclosures or other vacant property in Milwaukee make sure you figure in the extra costs and hassles associated with certificate of occupancy inspections.  Then decide if it is still worth it. There are plenty of other areas that welcome your investment of time effort and money as well as the jobs our industry creates.   Perhaps your investment would produce better results elsewhere.