Connecticut Senate Tracks Foreclosed for Sale Properties
A bill that would prevent foreclosed for sale properties from causing blight in Connecticut neighborhoods was passed by the state Senate on Tuesday afternoon.
The Senate bill, called An Act Concerning Neighborhood Protection, was passed unanimously. It was also previously passed unanimously in the Senate Banks Committee.
The bill would create a registration system that would track the owners of vacant foreclosed for sale properties and monitor the maintenance and conditions of abandoned properties.
The Senate bill would also empower municipalities to implement provisions of general statutes or municipal ordinances concerning the maintenance or repair of abandoned properties. Municipalities are also instructed to provide proper notices to owners of foreclosed for sale properties and give them time to rehabilitate the properties or solve any problem related to their maintenance.
According to Democratic Senator Bob Duff, co-chairperson of the Banks Committee, the bill would protect neighborhoods from deteriorating into places that hosts crime and violence. He reiterated that blight is not only a beautification issue; it is a public safety issue. Foreclosed for sale houses that are uninhabited and untended for a long time becomes magnets for thieves, vandals and other types of criminals.
Duff added that the tracking system to be established by the bill would identify owners of abandoned foreclosed for sale properties and would make them accountable for their repair and maintenance. It gives towns and cities the power to prevent blight from devastating their communities.
Owners of foreclosed for sale properties would be ordered to register either through the Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems or with the town clerk. Owners would pay a $100 registration fee and provide their contact information, including contact information for the property maintenance company that would secure and maintain the vacant foreclosed for sale properties.
According to a report released in May by California-based foreclosure monitoring service RealtyTrac, Connecticut is 19th in a ranking of states according to foreclosure rates in April. It had 1,695 lis pendens, 119 notices of foreclosure sales, 360 real estate owned properties, a total of 2,174 foreclosure filings and a foreclosure rate of one in every 662 housing units.
In the first quarter, with one in every 245 housing units getting a foreclosure filing, Connecticut was 15th in rate ranking, with 4,256 lis pendens, 16 notices of trustee sale, 461 notices of foreclosure sale, 1,143 REO units and 5,876 total filings.
The bill, expected by many to eliminate the blight effects of foreclosed for sale, moves to the House for consideration and voting.
